


don't go into the woods

by aprhrodite



Category: Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (TV), Nancy Drew (Video Games), Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene, Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Super Mysteries - Franklin W. Dixon & Carolyn Keene
Genre: F/F, F/M, Horror, Monsters, Mystery, Psychological Horror, Survival Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2018-12-12 21:25:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11745495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprhrodite/pseuds/aprhrodite
Summary: One cold December night, Nancy convinced six of her friends to accompany her to a ski lodge for some winter fun.Two hours later, Deirdre went missing.This is a story told from seven different perspectives about the events that occurred that night. Listen. Investigate. Understand. Try to piece together a thirty-year-old mystery before it's too late.But no matter what happens, don't go into the woods.





	1. grizzly bears

**Bess Marvin**

* * *

 

 _Bess has been walking for what feels_ like decades. The cold has already begun to wear out its welcome, and she can feel the snow stick to the bottom of her boots as she treks on, barely able to make out Nancy’s thin shadow in the looming fog. It’s an unsettling midweek in December and the snow seems unrelenting, covering everything in sight in a thin veil of white. If she stays out here any longer she’ll become an icicle herself, so she wraps her arms around her torso and quickens her pace, finally meeting up with Nancy at the top of a small hill. Beyond the mounds of snow, she can see the faint outline of the lodge in the distance. They’d be there soon.

“Nancy,” she pleads, looping an arm through her friend’s. “How much longer is this going to take? I’m freezing!”

Nancy laughs outright, pulling Bess closer for a small squeeze. “Oh, come on. Just be grateful you didn’t have to carry your bags up here.”

Smiling, Bess nods. “It seems like such a _waste_ , you know, to have all that muscle and not put it to good use,” she giggles. “They’ll thank me later.”

“Probably not,” Nancy says, pointing to the lodge. It seems like miles away. “Look, we’re almost there.”

They continue in silence, Bess barely able to keep up with Nancy’s long strides. Being short comes with its perks, but this is definitely not one of them. They round a series of corners, passing by a few snow-covered picnic tables and an old supply shed. With the sun almost lost beneath the horizon, the moonlight is the only thing to see by. Even Nancy’s seemingly-perfect skin looks purple in the haze.

As they cross in front of the shed’s entrance, a figure darts out from around back and leaps in her direction. Bess screams, throwing herself down on her knees to protect her face with her arms. In front of her, Nancy staggers back, tripping over Bess’ tiny, curled-up body and landing backward in the snow.

Joe laughs, the action making his whole body heave in dramatic movements. “Oh, oh, oh _Christ_ ,” he laughs, nearly toppling over. “Come _on_ , that was too easy.”

“Fuck you, Joe,” Bess spits, brushing snow off her jeans as she stands. “That was the definition of uncool.”

But he just continues to laugh, rustling up the long tendrils of blond hair falling short of his eyes. She smacks him in the shoulder and walks passed, making sure to roll her eyes for emphasis. He barely moves, still chuckling to himself as Ned appears through the woods, a clingy Deirdre stuck to his hip like superglue. Why Nancy decided to invite the two of them is _beyond_ Bess. Who invites their ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend—the possible spawn of Satan—to vacation with them? It’s weird.

She’s almost to the lodge steps before someone grabs her hand and spins her around. It’s Joe, and George is meters behind him, lugging her suitcase and grumbling under her breath. Bess yanks her hand from Joe, scowling. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Oh, come on, princess,” Joe grins. “It was just a joke. Don’t get your panties in a knot.”

“You’d like that.”

“Well, I mean, of course I would.”

Bess shoves him again but he dodges it this time, instead grabbing her elbow and pulling her forward so her cheek smacks against his chest. His arms come to rest on her lower back and she pushes away from him, sticking her tongue out. “Stay away from me!”

She turns and walks up the steps, nearly knocking into George.

“Ouch—fuck, Bess. Watch where you’re going.” She groans, plucking a cigarette from her pack and putting it in her mouth. Bess’ hand comes down on the unlit cigarette before George has a chance to light it up, knocking it from her mouth and sending it down into a heap of snow. “Oh, God. This again?”

“I don’t want you to die from lung cancer,” Bess frowns.

George rolls her eyes, running a hand through her chocolate hair. “Yeah, yeah. Okay.” She stuffs the rest of the pack into her back pocket and gestures to the front door where Nancy stands, busy pushing keys in and out of the lock.

“Take your time,” Deirdre calls from the foot of the stairs, toying with one of the strings of Ned’s sweat-shirt. “It’s not like we’re all fucking freezing down here.”

Her comment goes unnoticed and unappreciated, mostly because Bess isn’t in the mood to deal with her bullshit right now, and also because she promised Nancy she’d be nice to her during their trip. So Bess does her best to keep her face neutral, avoiding Joe’s darting glances and Deirdre’s unamused facial expressions. She’s not entirely sure when Frank joined up with them, but now he wanders around the stairs, hands shoved deep in his pockets. He’s not one to talk.

Lively bunch.

After a few moments of stale silence, the door finally opens. Bess is the first one through, quickly collapsing on a hard couch and letting out an exasperated sigh. Nancy disappears around the corner after shutting the door behind everyone. It’s just as cold inside the lodge as it is outside, and none of the light switches work. The power must be off. Of course.

“It’s freezing. Someone should find the circuit breaker.” Bess says to no one in particular. She’s not surprised when Deirdre’s obnoxious laugh comes floating in from the entranceway. Every comment Bess made on this trip would be happily countered by Deirdre. They’re not fond of each other. Everyone knows that.

“Why don’t _you_ go find the breaker, Bess?” Deirdre says, sitting atop of one of her many suitcases, all of which were carried by Ned. He idles in the background, inches away, unable to be separated from the newfound love of his life. “Unless you suddenly have plans?”

Bess rolls her eyes. “Nope, my schedule looks pretty free, actually,” She snaps, sitting upright again. “You tend to have a lot of time to yourself when you’re not busy fucking everyone in town.”

 _That_ gets a response.

Frank trips over one of the legs of the dining table, stabling himself on a nearby support beam inches away from his brother. Bess expects a similar reaction from Deirdre, but she just snaps her fingers. “Well done,” She says. “Your very first burn. What a wonderful moment this is.” Her snaps increase their pace. “Gather around, everyone. She’s been rehearsing this one for weeks.”

Bess’ nostrils flare. To her right, George kicks her feet up onto the coffee table, unamused by their squabble. It’s nothing new. “I’m a better actress than you are in bed, I bet,” Bess crosses her arms over her chest, cocking her head to the side. Two can play this game. “Must be really difficult. Can’t relate.”

Deirdre laughs again, stroking Ned’s jawline with a manicured finger. He stays still, mouth clamped shut, unable to make eye contact with everyone in the room. Typical Ned. “I assure you my bedroom endeavors are a lot more interesting than your Friday nights, Elizabeth,” She taps her fingers against Ned’s lips and he smiles nervously. “What’s it like not being able to land a boyfriend? Can’t relate.”

Anger boils in Bess’ blood. She feels hot and sweaty and alive with resentment, watching Deirdre continue to outline Ned’s face with her fingers. Months ago, Ned had been asking Bess for advice concerning his relationship with Nancy. They’d never been particularly close, but they’d been as close as they could’ve been, and now he remains silent, watching Deirdre yank her around like a cat toying with its prey. It’s stupid, really, believing anything different. Once he and Nancy broke up he was like a sad puppy ready to be coddled, and Deirdre was right there.

The suffering and the insufferable, finding each other like some sick romantic tragedy. And she can’t stand it.

The years of torment come flooding back to her in an instant. They were both cheerleaders, but Deirdre snatched the captain’s role right out of Bess’ lap sophomore year and continued to make her life a living hell, leaving Bess a victim to nights lost in comparison and self-deprecation, wishing she could be the girl with big lips and black hair who everyone seemed to like. She still can’t understand it. She’d pleaded with Nancy for days, asking her to disinvite Deirdre for their winter getaway, but Nancy had just thrown up a hand and asked Bess to drop it. This would be _good_ for them.

And like every time Bess gets mad, she can feel the hot tears welling up in her eyes. She doesn’t want to cry in front of Deirdre—in front of anyone, really—but it seems to be her body’s natural defense against emotional torture, and Deirdre seemed to be a magnet for it. Before she gives herself away, Bess stands and turns toward the big glass window accenting the north wall overlooking the ski slopes and the mountain range beyond.

“That’s what I thought,” Deirdre says behind her.

“Guys, let’s not,” Joe says suddenly, his voice light and strained. “We’re here to have a good time. No fighting. Unless you guys are going to make-out afterward, then, I mean—”

Always the peacemaker. Her Joe.

Nancy appears from the hallway again, holding some papers and a larger key ring than the one she had before. “Okay, guys,” she says. Deirdre sucks in her cheeks. “Here’s the paperwork on the ski lifts and the slopes.”

Joe takes the papers from her, scouring the pages like he’s physically digesting the information. “Jeez, Nance, how’d you manage to score this place for a week?”

She shrugs, suddenly hidden behind a curtain of her strawberry-blond hair. “There’s a guy who worked with my dad a few years ago before he retired. He and his family used to come up here during the winter months.” She takes a minute to glance around the main floor, resting a hand on a support beam. “His wife died last year from cancer, and… well, they don’t really use it anymore, so he agreed to let us stay here for the week while we’re on break. I guess his kids are older now.”

Bess barely notices George rifling around in her baggage until her cousin stands upright again, hands locked around the necks of two full bottles of alcohol. “Ah, yes, very interesting,” George jokes, putting the bottles down on the coffee table. “Seb was a good man for once and bought these for us. Let’s not waste any more of my precious time.”

“Your brother actually bought these for us?” Bess says, watching her reflection change and morph in the bottle’s reflection. She’s not much of a drinker, but having a few drinks would definitely help her relax, especially with Deirdre here.

“Yeah, who would’ve thought?”

“Take it easy,” Nancy says with a shake of her head. “I don’t want anyone to be throwing up, or—or hungover, or something, tomorrow, when we go skiing.”

Joe twists the cap off the first bottle, dumping a fair amount into the red solo cups George removed from her bag. “That all depends on if you can handle your alcohol, Nance,” He jokes, swishing the liquid around in his cup before taking a slow sip. He screws his face up in disgust. “Gross.”

“I didn’t say it was good,” George’s eyebrows inch up on her forehead. “Let’s see if there are mixers in the kitchen. Bess, pour everyone a cup.”

Bess grips the bottle carefully, watching the condensation inch down its length. She pours a decent amount in all seven cups, biting down on her tongue to keep focused. After a moment, George comes around the corner with two containers of orange juice. Not her first choice, but it’ll do.

“None for me, thanks,” Frank says, fixing the hem of his sweater. It’s the first time he’s spoken all night, and Bess is taken aback by the deepness of his voice. Last time she saw him they were barely teenagers and he was freckled with pimples and awkwardness. Now he stands almost a foot taller than Ned, with dark eyebrows and square shoulders. He looks like a modern-day action figure.

She opens her mouth to reject, but Ned is one step ahead of her. “What? Not into breaking the rules for one night?”

The tension caused by her fight with Deirdre returns with a vengeance, and Bess can feel it tickling her throat. Frank has one foot on the steps leading to the second floor. “Just a little tired, that’s all.”

It becomes clear that Ned isn’t satisfied. He breaks away from Deirdre’s side, grabbing a cup off the table. “You?” His laugh sounds forced and uncomfortable, and Bess doesn’t miss Joe’s sidelong glance to her. “Come on, just have a drink.”

“I’m good, Ned. Really.”

“Why are you being so quiet tonight?” Ned persists, taking a sip. He grimaces at the taste. “You’re normally pretty chatty when Nancy is here.”

Yikes.

Bess looks to George for some sort of plan, but George is glued to their conversation, her hand frozen on the juice carton. Even Deirdre looks half-amused, shrugging off her thick jacket and bending down to untie her boots.

Frank’s hand lands on the stair railing, gripping it tighter than anyone probably should. He lets out a long, soft laugh, glancing up to the ceiling as if looking for answers he won’t find. “I told you, I’m just tired,” he says, taking another step. “Is that… a problem?”

His dark eyes find Ned’s shorter stature, still wavering at the bottom of the stairs. A few moments pass in silence, both of them fighting some sort of weird, invisible joust, until Frank just turns on his heels and stalks up the stairs. He makes it to the second floor when Nancy opens her mouth again, clearing her throat loudly to get everyone to stop staring.

_What was that about?_

“Hey, Ned, why don’t you help me find the breaker downstairs?” Nancy is saying, running her long, bony fingers across the stack of paperwork. “We all just need a hot shower and to go to bed.”

It’s not hard to miss Deirdre’s rapidly changing expression. She tries hard to maintain her perfect composure, but Bess can see right through it. Ned has always been her soft spot, her kryptonite.

And Deirdre’s perfect little fucking face drips with disgust when Ned shrugs, downing the rest of his cup and following Nancy down the stairs to their immediate right. It’s almost enough to get Bess to smile, but she doesn’t. She’ll savor this moment for a little while.

It’s just Joe, Deirdre, Bess, and George left in the expanding great room. Without the others, there’s an unfamiliar discomfort that settles in the niches between them.

Deirdre, unable to be anywhere without Ned, slams her boots atop of her suitcase and walks upstairs without another word, heading the opposite direction of Frank once she reaches the carpeted second floor.

“Well… that was… weird,” Joe says after a long while, kicking the scuffed floorboards.

“Ned is officially off his rocker,” George says with a smirk, snuggling herself into the couch cushions. “I’ve never seen him act like that before.”

“Me either.”

Bess takes a moment to look around the room. The lack of light leaves her with unrecognizable shapes of gray and black, hidden away in the moonlight, but the ground floor of the lodge expands to a couple thousand square feet, easily swallowing her modest little home back in River Heights. There are hallways stretching out in nearly every direction, no doubt outlining more extravagant bedrooms and closets. She can get lost in this place easily—but maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

“Bess,” Joe says, rocking on his heels. “You want to go catch the sunset? It’s almost over.”

She fusses with her blonde hair, tucking a few loose strands behind her ear. “I guess so.”

“George? You in?”

But her cousin is already stretching her long, slender legs out on the couch, so Bess shakes her head. “Just us.”

Joe grins. “Just us.”

* * *

 She’s never quite seen a more perfect sunset in her life. Their position on the mountain gives them perfect view of the descending ski slopes and the little town beyond, faint lights twinkling in the twilight haze. Down to her right, there’s a little ski shack bordering one of the larger slopes, teetering on the edge of the snow-covered hill, almost embedded into the earth itself. She leans against one of the tattered fences, stretching her arms over their protective bordering, watching the sun take its final descent.

“This is just too weird,” Joe says after a moment, squinting his eyes to see further down the slopes.

“What’s weird?”

“I don’t know, just thinking about the whole ‘life’ thing, I guess.”

“Oh _God_ ,” Bess snorts. “Don’t get all worldly on me.”

He laughs, white teeth catching the last of the sun’s rays. Bess’ toes begin to feel numb, but she’s certain it’s not from the cold this time. “I just meant like, it’s so weird how life can just dramatically change based on one little decision,” He begins to scrape snow off the fence. “Ned and I met like, a thousand years ago, it seems like. If we never would’ve met… I wouldn’t be here right now.”

She scoffs. “Yes huh. You know Nancy.”

He shakes his head. “I mean, yeah, sure, I know her—but if I didn’t _also_ know Ned, maybe we wouldn’t have been invited in the first place, you know?”

“What’s up with him lately?” She groans. “He’s been so hot and cold. One minute he’s hiding behind Deirdre’s ass, the next he’s Mr. Tough Guy.”

“Yeah, that was weird,” Joe tightens the muscles in his cheek. “I guess maybe he just… I don’t know. He and Frank don’t really… see eye-to-eye.”

“You don’t have to be nice,” Bess says. “It’s just me out here, you know.” She rocks her hips into him but he doesn’t move. Instead, he points his chin down at her, offering a lopsided grin.

“Okay, so you’re right. They fucking hate each other.”

“I don’t get it, though,” Bess sighs. “I mean, it’s not like Frank has been around much. You either. But for some reason, they’ve just never gotten along.”

Joe laughs again, pinching Bess’ side. She jerks her torso away, scowling. “Oh, yeah, right,” He jokes. “Quote. For some reason. Unquote.”

She rolls her eyes. “It always has to be about _Nancy_ , doesn’t it?”

This time he rolls his hips into her, and the force makes her stagger back away from the fencing. “What’s the matter? Are you jealous?”

“Yes,” She says, raising her chin. “Yes, I am.”

He sticks out his bottom lip at her. “Don’t get enough attention, _Elizabeth_?”

She suddenly feels sick. It’d been years since anyone called her by her full name seriously, save for Deirdre who only did it out of spite. But there is something about the way he says it, something about the way he looks at her with such mischievous potential, that makes her want to faint into the snow.

“Oh, enough,” She says, batting the air with her hand. “I just don’t get enough attention from the right kind of people, _Joseph_.”

“So, there are people?” He says, one eyebrow shooting up on his forehead. “Plural? More than one?”

“Okay, just a person. Singular.”

He’s grinning again and her face feels warm. “Sounds like this person is an idiot.”

“Oh, yeah,” She says, feigning ignorance. “He’s a fucking dumbass, actually, but I’ll never say it to his face.”

Joe snorts. “Probably a good idea. It would hurt his feelings, I bet.”

“You’re right,” She turns around, falling in step back to the lodge. “It probably would.”

But he’s right there, at her side, grinning like an idiot with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, though she can think of many places she’d like them to be. “Although,” He says, matching her pace. “Maybe he doesn’t know that you want this sort of attention from him.”

She stops for a moment to eye him before continuing along the dim path. “Oh, I think he knows,” She says. “He’s just being difficult.”

“What if difficult is fun?”

“It’s _annoying_.”

“Maybe… that’s _why_ it’s fun.”

Bess stops suddenly, letting the full force of Joe’s physique crush into her back. It nearly pushes her over, but she digs her feet into the ground and stables herself before whipping around, chased by little zigzags of blonde hair. “I can think of plenty other things that would be more fun than that.” She lets a smile invade her blushed face, watching him squirm uncomfortably underneath her words.

“Oh yeah? Tell me.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” She laughs, turning again to walk, but he’s already got one hand locked on her wrist, just like earlier, and this time, she has little intention of running away. She lets him pull her until her chin is inches away from his chest, his hands resting comfortably on a nearby tree behind her. She’s pinned between them, but she hardly cares at this point. Even the falling temperature couldn’t distract her from his moment, blue eyes and blond hair and that _stupid_ fucking smile.

She hates him in the best way. Fire and gasoline.

“Come on, now,” He says, and she barely notices that he’s whispering now, comforted by the sounds of a rushing river miles away and the wind rustling through the unfallen leaves. “Don’t be a tease.”

She’s suddenly aware of how _warm_ he is, how the heat seems to pulsate off his body like a furnace, settling between the two of them like a magnet, pulling their bodies closer together by the second. She rests her head against one of his muscled arms, watching him study her like a dessert menu, wondering which part of her would taste the best.

 And then she hears it: low, guttural, and sharp—the growl comes from the nearby woods beyond the path.

“Joe, did you—”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

The moment is gone just as quick as it came but there’s adrenaline rushing in her veins now, pulling her away from the tree and down the slippery confines of the path in front of them. The walk is brisk and hypothermia waits in the shadowy places of the fog settling around their ankles, but the two of them carry on, looping around some familiar bends and curves.

And then they hear it again. This time, it’s louder.

“Oh, fuck—!”

Bess has never been much of a runner—or one for exercise, really—but now she finds herself in an almost full-blown sprint, cutting down an unfamiliar section of path that send her toppling forward in an instant. She lands headfirst, the snow cutting into her pale skin. She expects to be devoured alive, or something, until Joe scoops her up in one swift motion, setting her back down on her feet and reuniting her with the coldness around them.

“What—what the _fuck_ —”

“I don’t know, but we need to keep moving,” Joe says, heaving like a tired dog. The two of them walk for a few moments until Bess’ left foot lands on something hard and metallic. She draws her foot away instantly, as if it’s some sort of trap, only to see the faint outline of a fallen sign that must’ve been dragged down in the weather.

_WARNING: GRIZZLY BEAR SIGHTINGS IN AREA. PROCEED WITH CAUTION._

“Joe?”

“Yeah, let’s fucking hurry.”

She’s running again, chasing after Joe’s long legs, the cold keeping her throat raw and infested with anxiety. She’d half-expected her night to end with the two of them panting, but it did _not_ involve being eaten alive by a bear.

Or… whatever it was.


	2. electric love

**Deirdre Shannon**

* * *

 

Fuck this place.

Deirdre makes her way through long hallways and ugly bedrooms, finally settling on a larger, more spacious bedroom with a queen bed and pockets of old artwork. Most of it is severely out of touch with the decade, but she doesn’t mind. It gives the room a homier feeling. At least she could hang out here when everyone else decided to gang up on her. Bess, no doubt, already told her little blond piece all about their history, and she doesn’t want to be around during the aftermath of that sob story.

After a moment of wavering in the doorway, Deirdre pushes her suitcases to the side of the bed. It’s freezing in here, and looking around, she notices one of the ornate windows is open, the curtains dancing around in the evening chill. Confused, she steps closer, examining the window’s lock. It looks like it’s only been open for a little while—the metal isn’t frozen. But the more peculiar question is that it needed to be opened from the inside, and no one had been up here except her.

She shakes her head immediately, drawing back from the window. This is nothing more than a stupid practical joke, a chance to embarrass her and set her brain on fire, and it won’t be happening.

Nancy Drew can solve the mystery of the open window—if there’s even a mystery to be solved.

She takes a seat along the edge of the oak bed and starts to organize the contents of her suitcase, separating her clothes into little piles based on aesthetic preference and outfits for each day of the week. She even runs her fingers across the silk of her new lingerie, smiling to herself. She could get into so much trouble here with Ned. It would be enough to kill all of Nancy’s lasting thoughts about him, hearing him moan and shiver under another woman’s touch. Deirdre didn’t care if the rest of this damn lodge heard them, and in fact, she welcomed it. Maybe they’d finally have enough sense to leave them alone and stop questioning their relationship. Maybe then Nancy would understand that she’s no longer a pawn in their little game of life.

Game over. You lose.

She can feel her stomach start to do somersaults thinking about the evening ahead. A hot shower, some lotion, crawling into Ned’s arms. Feeling his jawline, hearing his breath become labored, watching his muscles harden and contract above her. Begging for his kiss, gasping for air, listening to the floorboards ache underneath their weight.

Imagining Nancy Drew’s face as she lies in bed, _alone_ , listening to her ex-boyfriend fuck the life out of someone else.

Deirdre loved Ned for as long as she could remember, going back to her days in middle school sitting in the sun and tracing her algebra notes. Those memories are dreamlike. Ned was a new student, but the moment she saw him, she was fascinated by his dimples and those strong hands, the way he carried his books to the side, his stupid sense of humor. She tried for years to get him to notice her the way he noticed Nancy. She wanted nothing more than to feel his fingers draw pictures on her thighs, dance with him under the twinkling lights of prom, rest her head on his collarbones and hear him toss around three words for the rest of her happy life. But Nancy was a constant obstacle, the person she’d never live up to, the giant rock in her river. She’d never understand his undying love for a girl who was never here. So when Ned told her about this week, spending their Christmas break together, she’d practically fallen off the bed with excitement. She didn’t care that five other people hated her very existence—she was going to spend time with Ned.

But just like that, the feeling is gone. Erased. Wiped clean. Because Ned isn’t here—he’s downstairs climbing around in a basement with _her_.

She tries to clear her thoughts but they pour in thick and hot, infectious, poisonous. Nancy is probably downstairs, right now, clutching to the folds of his shirt and begging for him to take her back. And _damn it_ , he would. As much as she loves him, Deirdre is convinced he would do anything for that girl, that _Nancy Drew_ , with her big fucking eyes and sideways smile.

He’d walk to the end of the earth for Deirdre, but he’d capture a star for Nancy.

She looks around the room, fighting nausea creeping up her throat. She’s missing a bag. It must be downstairs, but going back down there would be social suicide, even if everyone else was gone.

Instead, she stands to examine the large wardrobe in the corner of the room. Its paneling suggests it was handmade, intricate carvings dotting the sides and handle joints. The wood looks worn and faded, and even the floor resents its touch; scuff marks outline the places it has been moved.

She pulls on the handle and the doors open slowly, rhythmically, until she’s staring into a black abyss. Then something comes at her, pushing her back and onto the hard floor. It pins her to the ground, unable to move, unable to break free. She suffocates for a moment, the scent of must overpowering, before a scream tears through her throat—but then it’s over in a matter of seconds. It’s just a costume. Some clothing. She’s alone still.

She shoves the ski suit off herself before standing upright again. The wardrobe is empty, save for some moth balls and socks without their mates. Frustrated, she pushes the suit back into the closet and forces the doors closed again. She doesn’t want any of her clothes covered in a sheet of grime so they’ll stay in their little piles in her suitcase for now. Beyond the bed, Ned’s duffle bag lies untouched.

She paws at it preemptively, searching for whatever she can find. There’s nothing of interest. Old shirts, some thick socks, ski goggles. A tiny box of condoms. Deodorant. Other boy things. Though the condoms make her heart pump twice as fast, she feels tired and upset and _annoyed_ , to say the least, so she puts Ned’s things back into his bag and sits cross-legged on the bed, waiting.

That’s when she notices that the window is closed.

She glances around the room in one sweeping motion, keeping a watchful eye on one of the mirrors hung above the bedside table. She _knew_ it was a prank. Fucking idiots.

“You can come _out_ now!” Deirdre screams, popping off the bed to pace around the room, feeling her veins bubble and sizzle. They will _not_ get away with this.

No one makes a fool of Deirdre Shannon. No one.

“You’re not _funny_ , guys!”

She continues this for a while, pacing back in forth until she feels like her feet have carved paths into the old floorboards. Her screams go unanswered until there’s a knock at the door. She flings it open angrily, expecting to see blonde heads laughing at her, but she’s only met with bushy eyebrows and an expression that might just be more pissed off than her.

“You okay?” Frank demands, narrowing his eyebrows. “Heard you fucking screaming for about fifteen minutes.”

She scoffs. She’s not one to be deterred by such an attitude. She _invented_ that attitude. “Looks like dumb and dumber tried to play a prank on me,” She snaps. “I just wanted to thank them for such an honest attempt.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t care,” Frank says, nodding toward her bed. “I just want to lie down for a little bit. So keep it down, yeah?”

“Where is everyone?”

“Out,” Frank has one hand on the doorway, ready to leave. “I’m sure they’ll be back soon though. George is downstairs trying to mess with the stove.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” He says, clearing his throat. “So. Bye.”

“Had enough contest for one day?” Deirdre says, pursing her lips into a thin line. “All that talking tucker you out?”

His upper lip twitches. “Yes.”

“Fine. Goodnight.” She says, but he’s already walking away. His shoulder blades jut out of his dark sweater, slinking down to the muscles of his lower back. He towers about half a foot above Ned, the top of his scalp barely touching one of the ceiling beams. He’s handsome, sure, but he’s not Ned. “And tell your brother thanks _so_ much for the little joke!”

“No idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” he grumbles, disappearing down the long hallway.  

She’s alone yet again, forced to climb into the stale sheets of the bed and try to forget about what just happened.

She takes a moment to look again at the window lock. It was open just moments before, but now the lock is fixed shut, cold and stuck. She tries to yank on it, but the lock doesn’t move. It feels like it’s been locked for many months, but that’s just—that’s not possible. Unless she’s seeing things. Judging by her performance upon their arrival and her recent spat with Frank, she figures hallucinating from anger is more probable than someone sneaking in to close the window without her noticing. Besides, Bess sulked off with Joe almost an hour ago to watch the sunset. Outside, the sky is purple and dark. They’d be back soon.

Once again, Deirdre remembers her bedroom is missing a body, and Ned is still unaccounted for, lost in the bowels of the basement with his ex-girlfriend. She frowns. How long does it take someone to find a circuit breaker?

Instinctively, she flicks on the light switch of the nearby lamp angling on her bedside table. Nothing. The electric is still off.

They’ve been downstairs for more than twenty minutes. That’s twenty minutes too long for Deirdre’s liking.

She slips some wool socks on, pulling a brush through her short black locks before committing to the second floor again, stepping out carefully to avoid making any noise. The door shuts behind her tiny frame, exiling her to the hallway beyond. She takes tiny steps, looking at some of the pictures hung sloppily on the walls. Some of the pieces are similar to the ones hanging in her bedroom, and some of them are more contemporary, matching the interior of the rest of the lodge. It appears the owners tried to do a revamp of their own but stopped halfway through construction; half the lodge resembles a modern-day wood cabin while the other half—namely, the half with her master bedroom and bathroom—remain more vintage, with dark colors and Native American decorative pieces.

It even seems like this half of the lodge holds more history, more weight, more _something_. The ground creaks under her footsteps and the beams in the ceiling play with the moonlight. There’s something eerie about this place, but it’s also comforting, like the shadows could just come alive with the night and throw wonderful parties. The darkness used to scare Deirdre, but now it’s become a source of familiarity; the darkness was her friend through her parent’s risky divorce, the arguments, the nights spent crying over boys and girls and school. She welcomes it like a hot piece of pie, watching the twilight cover her skin in blue and purple, enjoying the fact that she could slip into the shadows and never be found again—only on her terms, when she’s ready, when she wants to face the world again.

Her toes touch the soft carpet, a giant leap from the worn floorboards on the east wing. Once in the main area by the stairs, she notices a large family portrait hanging a few meters above her on the north wall, opposite the lodge entrance. She studies their faces carefully. There are a man and an older woman—presumably the owners—with three children. Two of them are girls with red cheeks and big teeth, but the boy is centered. He must be the youngest, judging by the positioning. The older man rests a hand on the boy’s shoulder, inches away from his son’s round face and piercing green eyes.

Deirdre blinks.

She’s seen those eyes before.

She leans in closer, squinting to see through the darkness. Even now, those eyes are unmistakable, but she can’t remember where she saw them. A TV show, maybe? On campus? In class? She shakes her head. Below the boy’s eyes, a long scar runs the length of his chin. It should help her identify him, but it just makes the process more confusing. She continues to stare at his face until her eyes become dry and her neck hurts. She’s _positive_ she’s seen him before. But where?

She rolls her neck around, satisfied when she hears the familiar chain of _crack_ s, and draws her fingers near to rub the sore spots on her shoulders, letting out a long sigh. This is _Ned’s_ job. He should be here to do this, to run his fingers through her hair, caress her tiny face, draw patterns with her freckles—

That’s it. It’s been long enough. She’s not going to leave him down there with her any longer. Nancy can find the damn circuit breaker herself.


	3. voicemails

**George Fayne**

* * *

 

_After Joe and Bess finally leave for their_ sunset escapade, George finds herself alone at last, practically sinking into the couch in the main living room. The entire lodge feels hollow and quiet without the energy of a crowd, but George has become fond of this sort of alone time. She craves the quiet like the drag of a cigarette, a little itch on the place she can’t scratch, and finding time for either of those things will become harder once there are people around. Quiet evades Bess like the plague, and there will be no time to sit and smoke a cigarette when anyone is around to complain about the secondhand smoke. So George lets herself mold with the couch, downing what’s left in her little solo cup, and listens to the hum of the earth around her.

Through the window, she can see it’s not snowing, but there’s a vast blanket of white covering everything the eye can see. She’s always been a winter baby—born in the later weeks of November, right when the snow was sticky enough to pack into snowballs. She likes the bite of winter more than anything, the way it creeps up on you all of a sudden, the way it makes you feel raw and alive with wonder. The chill is fascinating, but winter comes with its own romantic twist—Christmas is right around the corner, and nothing makes George happier than the twinkling lights of a Christmas tree, sitting outside with a hot coffee and her favorite black boots, watching the stores light up one by one after dark.

She stays like this for some time, memorizing the patterns in the ceiling beams and watching the sky darken every minute, successfully succumbing them in the deep forest. But the moment soon passes, and she finds herself with the familiar ache of boredom. Loneliness is only fun for a little while.

Beside the knocked-over cups and bottles of alcohol, an old hunting magazine teeters on the edge of the coffee table. She pulls at it, ripping a corner of the page in the process. It’s practically stuck to the cold glass with big brown water stains on the back cover, sealing it in place. It must have been here for quite some time. Although it details fancy guns and other hunting equipment, the lodge is empty of any trophies or animal heads. She furrows her brow. It seems like this would be the perfect place to go hunting if someone had a license, yet there’s no sign of any interest here.

She shrugs and drops the magazine back down onto the counter. She doesn’t like boys. Maybe the owners just don’t like hunting. Simple as that.

Besides, there are better things to do than sit around and read the prices of hunting rifles. At the foot of the stairs, a pink and white bag stands alone. George figures it must be Deirdre’s, left behind after her tantrum. For a moment, she wonders what could be inside.

But then she just stops wondering and stands up, crossing the room in a flash. She bends over the small bag carefully, ears straining to hear the slightest sound upstairs. It’s not like she really cares much for Deirdre’s opinion, but she doesn’t want to get into it right now, especially after her cousin’s little outburst. George could take down Deirdre’s whiny antics in a second if she was forced, but it’s not something she _enjoys_ doing.

She pulls back the tiny zipper and peeks inside. The inner layer is pink as well, matching the exterior, but the bag is mostly empty save for some spare makeup removal wipes and a pack of birth control. The sight nearly makes George laugh aloud. She figured Deirdre would’ve stopped taking the pill a long time ago so she could have Ned’s curly-haired children, or something, since she was practically always complaining about having Ned as a boyfriend. This seemed to be the perfect opportunity to make it stick, seeing as George found it improbable that Ned would ever propose. He’s good at convincing smiles and warm hugs, but he still stared at Nancy way too long and asked about her way too much.

Not that George really _cared_ about his relationship with Deirdre. Or anyone, for that matter. When he’d dated Nancy, George was nice to him because it was, well, expected of her. He was sort of bland for her liking. She didn’t like boys, anyway, but she could at least _appreciate_ their wonder, and it seemed like Ned didn’t really have any. He was a glowing piece of cardboard, to put it lightly. Wherever Nancy went, he would follow—unless it interfered with his class schedule or involved him flying to an exotic country. Still, their relationship was subpar at best, and George was happy when it ended. They both needed things they couldn’t find in each other.

And who knows, maybe Deirdre really is Ned’s something. She hardly cared either way—she just wished Deirdre wouldn’t talk so much about it.

She zips the bag shut right as a scream pierces the air. It’s coming from upstairs.

Suddenly, George is on her feet, scrambling to find a place to hide. She hardly doubts its danger—just Deirdre, looking for attention, probably, but the latter might prove to be more of a pain in the ass than the former. She winds up in the dining room, squeezing her athletic frame through the legs of the table, right out of sight of the stairs. She can still see the little pink bag at the foot of the stairs, right where she left it.

She stays hidden for a moment, listening for footsteps or another annoyed exclamation, but neither come, and she’s beginning to look stupid crouched underneath the table like this. Finally, she stretches out from underneath, fixing the hat that’s taming her wild dark locks of hair.

She’d briefly passed this room upon entering. It’s a larger room with a huge mahogany table accompanied by ten matching chairs all stained the same and tucked underneath. It’s a room that looks like it’s used only for special occasions. The table is lined in a tiny veil of dust, down to the placemats and the fancy silverware. It’s done up like the family was preparing for a meal but never sat down to have it. Everything is in its perfect place.

Along the sides of the walls are two identical china cabinets, filled with decorative plates and more silverware. There’s another long, antique dresser on the far side of the room with some pictures dotting the top and an old landline phone.

She picks up the receiver and puts it against her ear. No dial tone. The family must’ve discontinued their service when they stopped vacationing here.

There’s still a blinking light on the answering machine, a signal for an unplayed message. George usually isn’t the one to get involved in other people’s business—but the family has been gone for some time, and the message might serve some importance, so she grabs a nearby stack of post-it notes and presses the tiny red button.

_You have—three—new messages. Press—seven—to hear the first message, or—_

7.

_First message. April—4 th—2000. _

George shakes her head. How long had the family been gone, exactly? A message nearly ten years old on a prehistoric landline phone?

_3:37pm. Hey, John, it’s Robin. I’m so sorry to hear about Thane._

Thane? Who’s Thane?

_Me and the kids were going to come visit but I know this is a little difficult for you, and I—I just want you to know that I’m here if you need to talk to someone. He was such a great kid. Looked just like you. Call me if you need anything_.

Beep.

A photo shoved to the back corner of the dresser catches George’s attention. She pulls it closer, wiping a sheen of dust from the glass, and examines it closely. It’s a family photo, just like the ones her mother _insisted_ on having when George and her brothers were all small and tolerable. There’s a man in this one with heavy eyes and a forced smile, accompanied by a frail looking woman and two skinny girls, both awkwardly holding each other’s gangly limbs.

_Press—seven—to hear the next message, or press three to delete the previous—_

7.

_Next message. June—18 th—2000. John, it’s Kenneth Arborny down at the station. Heard you were packing things up and heading back to the city. Just wanted to check in, er, see if you needed anything. I’ll be around for a while, so drop by anytime. _

Beep.

George holds the tiny photo in her hand for some time, studying the details of their faces. Both parents look worn and tired with deep purple rings outlining swollen eyes. And the girls… they look somehow worse. It’s possible that one of them is Thane—given her own situation, gender-specific names never really made sense—but it doesn’t sit right in her stomach. She scratches down _Thane_ on the piece of paper.

_Press—seven—to hear the next—_

7.

_Next message. August—20 th—2000. Hello Mr. Stevenson, it’s Helena from the Jackson County police department. We’ve—we’ve put this case to rest, sir, for the sake of your family. Unfortunately, there are no clear leads to the disappearance of your son, and the winter months will make it nearly impossible to find him. _

_Find him?_ Until now, George assumed he was involved in some sort of tragic accident—but the mystery of a disappearance is almost too much to believe.

_Anyway, I just wanted to extend our deepest condolences to you and your family. I understand this is a lot to deal with in such a short amount of time. I wish I could do more for you, sir. I really do. If you have any questions, feel free to call or stop by. As soon as we find more compelling evidence, I promise we will pick up where we left off. You have my word._

There’s something about this that breathes sinister. George shoves the note into her back pocket and returns the phone to its rightful position, wiping her cheek. Nancy had told them earlier that after his wife’s death, the owner just casually decided not to come back—but these messages were a sign that something _else_ happened up here, something more prominent than ski trips and winter getaways.

She’ll ask Nancy about it later. Even if it is… nothing, the family will most likely want to hear these messages—especially the one from the police officer explaining the fallen investigation.

She returns to the living room to find everything exactly how she’d left it, including Deirdre’s little pink bag at the end of the stairway. The lodge suddenly feels colder and darker, so she convinces herself it’s time to turn in for the night. Bess will be back soon, floored about her little adventure with Joe, and things will return to normal.

So she hopes.

She fusses with her straps on her luggage, preparing for the trek up the stairs to find a place to crash for the night. The alcohol is sitting in her stomach and burning a weird hole in her throat, and the note in her back pocket feels heavy and stained with resistance. She double- and triple-checks it’s still there before throwing her large duffle bag over her shoulder, turning to cross the room and journey up the stairs.

That’s when Deirdre nearly smacks into her, making George almost topple over from fright. She flinches, hands frozen around the straps of her bags, nostrils flared.

“Jumpy?” Deirdre smirks, rummaging through a nearby end table for something.

“You could’ve announced yourself,” George says, tightening her grip. “Won’t do you any good sneaking around like that.”

“ _Sneaking around_ ,” Deirdre repeats with a guttural laugh. “Oh, that’s rich. Coming from someone who’s best friends with the famous, world-renowned detective.” She continues to walk around the room, poking and prodding into different drawers and cabinets.

“Whatever,” George says. “You forgot a bag.”

“I see that.”

George isn’t one for small talk, and her voice is quickly dying in the back of her throat. The messages have unnerved her, to say the least, and the lodge has become more of a haunted house than a fortress of solitude. She’ll do well with a good night’s sleep—and the glittering sunshine in the morning—and there’s no use sticking her neck out for someone who wouldn’t care if it was snapped in half in the process. She leaves Deirdre in the living room wandering around.

She doesn’t go upstairs. She leaves her bags on the couch, unattended, partially because she has nothing to hide and partially because she’d _love_ to see Deirdre have the gall to snoop through her things. She exits through the kitchen instead, passing by the giant refrigerator, and ends up outside, her breath staggering in the cold. She’s not dressed for this kind of spontaneous outdoor trip, but it doesn’t matter. She just needs a fucking cigarette.

The first drag is the sweetest, and she can feel the burn tickle the back of her throat. The exhale is long and smooth, the smoke dissipating into the thin night air. She’s comforted by the smell, the romantic aura of the twilight, and the _silence_ , most of all, giving her time to process what just happened. She doesn’t consider herself to be entirely sympathetic, but a missing boy—that’s what the message said, right? _Kid_?—strikes a nerve. She has a little brother, too, and the thought of him alone in these dark woods made her almost nauseous. The alcohol made her feel fuzzy earlier, but now it’s just leaving her stale and tired.

From the porch, she can see the rising slopes in the distance to the left. In the morning, the sun would rise right over those rolling hills and create a path of sparkling champagne. She imagines herself floating down on her snowboard, the breeze massaging her throbbing temples, dodging trees and pockets of dry grass.

The lodge seems to be centered in the middle of the mountain’s edge. There’s nothing else to see but miles of trees and snow. She faces north, but the wind seems to edge through the southwest, drawing icicles out of her breath. It’s climbing below freezing, and fast; if Bess doesn’t come back soon, she’ll probably lose some fingers.

As her cigarette burns, George takes notice of the lodge’s foundation. It’s almost cemented into the hard earth. There are only two exits—the front door and the back porch—but then there’s another: a tiny, smaller cellar door most likely leading into the basement. She squints in the fading moonlight. The cellar isn’t padlocked like she’d expect—but instead, it’s boarded up. It looks like someone did it in a hurry. The boards are all over the place and nails speckle every square inch. It seems like overkill, honestly, but who is she to tell the owners what to do with their property? She spray-painted the walls in her room back home in River Heights—and her parents hadn’t seen it as a grand gesture of creativity like she had.

Besides, it’s probably to leave out the draft. The lodge is cold enough as it is; it doesn’t need any help.


	4. closure

**Ned Nickerson**

* * *

 

 _Ned walks in tandem with Nancy’s_ short physique without saying much. In truth, he has little to say, or rather he has a _lot_ to say without reason. It’s better this way, anyway. He doubts she wants to hear any more of his awkward ramblings. Odds are, that’s why they broke up to begin with, and he hardly wants to stir that pot any longer. He wouldn’t even know where to begin.

The basement is grimy and nearly covered in a sheet of dust. There’s piles of stuff and unrecognizable junk in nearly every corner. A few of the pipes lining the ceilings have sprung leaks and the cardboard on most of the boxes has begun to shrivel and wither away, almost melting into the cold cement beneath them. For someone who’s never been here before, Nancy sure knows where she’s going. Maybe the owner gave her some sort of map of the place.

Or maybe she’s just that good.

Rooms are connected to more rooms and even more rooms, and after a few moments, Ned finds himself lost. They’ve taken so many turns that he’s certain they’ll never be able to find their way out again. Well, _he’d_ never find his way out again, that’s for sure, if he loses sight of Nancy. He scans his flashlight around, but everything is dark and damp and moldy. Definitely not his cup of tea.

“So,” He says, hating himself as his voice croaks through the settling silence. “How have things been?”

She stops short, almost tripping, before resuming her brisk pace and ducking around another storage room. They pass a series of crawl spaces and other mysterious dark holes in the walls before she speaks. “I’ve… I’ve been okay. What about you?”

“I just mean, you know, since—”

“I know what you meant.”

 _Fuck_. This is not going well.

“Uh, I’ve been good,” He reaches out to scratch the back of his scalp, sweat pouring down his spine, but the beam of the flashlight moves with him, forcing them both into darkness. He fumbles around awkwardly, finally pointing the light back in the right direction so Nancy can see properly. _Fuck_. “Shit. Sorry.”

If Nancy is upset, she doesn’t show it; her face molds with sympathy. “How is Deirdre?”

She doesn’t want to be asking about this, Ned is sure of it, but she’s _Nancy._ She’s going to be nice and ask about the new girlfriend while purposefully side-stepping the fact that she used to be the old one and that they haven’t spoken in nearly two months. Ned has no _idea_ what Nancy’s been doing in that time. Solving cases, probably. Being Nancy. The first girl he ever kissed, despite his sister’s teasing, and the last girl he ever loved.

Well, partially. He loves Deirdre. He thinks.

He blinks, suddenly coming back to the freezing cold basement. “She’s… she’s good. We’re—I mean, we’ve been doing well.”

Since when did he get so awkward? Talking to Nancy used to be smooth sailing; he often memorized poems and lengthy narratives just to impress her—and half the time, it worked. But now he’s falling over letters and vomiting sentences like yesterday’s breakfast. Nothing makes sense anymore.

“That’s good.”

He’s desperate to keep this going because, well, he hasn’t heard her voice in what feels like forever. He once found solace in her inflections, the way she cleared her throat on the phone, her soft breathing at night. His palms start to sweat. None of that matters now, of course, not when he’s here with Deirdre and she’s here—

With Frank? With Frank. With… Frank?

No matter how he says it, it doesn’t resonate. Frank is tall and muscular and _serious_ , everything Ned isn’t. Frank knows poetry, speaks Latin, drinks his coffee black. Ned can barely spell without a dictionary close at hand and gets sick from a few beers. He’s shockingly inadequate. It’s a mystery in itself why Nancy decided to stay with him for so long. Maybe that’s why he’d been having a hard time sleeping, busy thinking about their last fight, that lazy Sunday, the day it ended. Truth is, he’d thought about it _a lot_ —an unhealthy amount, really.

He’s no good at mysteries. That’s why she left.

Probably.

“I… I took her to Calorn’s,” He’s babbling now, his breath hot and sticky. “You know, that place down on Route 9?”

“Yeah, the place with the good bread.”

He swallows. He wishes she didn’t know the place. Why did he even ask? Of course she knew fucking Calorn’s. Who didn’t? “Right, the place with the good bread,” He sniffs. “That… that was our first date.”

“That’s sweet of you,” She says, pulling him around another corner. They’ve nearly walked a mile. There’s no way this is a basement. They have to be in some sort of labyrinth. “I bet she had a good time.”

“She… did.”

Why is he talking about this? Nancy didn’t want to hear about his first date with Deirdre—or _any_ date with Deirdre. She’s the girl they all hate. She’s the _replacement_. Not that Ned really considered her that way. It seems more probable Nancy would be the one to do the replacing, like throwing out an old mop when the bristles got worn and didn’t do their job anymore.

That’s what he is. A wet mop.

His voice is scratchy. “We had a nice dinner, and then—and then we went to Glenndale for the old movies they play in the park on Tuesday’s.”

 _Fuck_. Those were her mother’s favorite. It was Nancy’s idea that had prompted him to take Deirdre there in the first place.

 “That’s…” Nancy stops, examining the room. She notices a small, desolate room to their left, but she doesn’t enter just yet. She swings herself around and looks at him, I mean, _really_ looks at him. It knocks the wind from his lungs. “That’s really romantic, Ned.”

“Listen,” He says. They’re about a foot apart but it feels like miles, eons, space years. If he reaches his hand out, she’ll only be holographic, a figure of his imagination. He’s dreaming this. Right? This can’t be happening. “I’m sorry about… about earlier.”

“It’s okay—”

“No, you know, it’s not,” He says. He feels alive with heat as if someone’s holding him over a pot of boiling water, watching him sizzle. “I don’t really know what came over me. I acted like a real prick.”

“It was… a little unexpected,” She says, but he’s watching the way her tongue moves behind her cushiony lips, resting at the back of her teeth. “But it’s okay. We’re all tired. It’s late. I’m sure it’s… awkward, being here. With me.”

 _No, it’s not awkward, it’s fucking horrible and amazing_. “I figured I would be okay, you know, with Deirdre being here,” He admits, feeling his shoulders sink. He chews on his bottom lip. “And I mean, it is. But he’s just—he’s just so—”

She puts up a hand. “I get it. Let’s just try for a better day tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” He wiggles the flashlight around the room. The light catches metal in the corner, and he sulks over to investigate, away from her, away from their romantic history. He can’t stand the way the cold makes her cheekbones stick straight out of her skull, the skin that stretches over them, the face he used to look for at the airport. He pretends to busy himself there for a while, turning over random pieces of thick, silver metal. After a moment, he notices it’s medical equipment. “Whoa,” He says, drawing her away from the other room. “There’s a lot of shit down here.”

“Yeah, I think the owner used to be a physician of some sort,” Nancy muses, coming to stand at his side. Her shoulder grazes against his bicep and his upper lip curls. Thankfully, in the dark, she can’t see him squirm. “My dad said he retired and then went into malpractice insurance or something like that.”

“Not a bag gig, I suppose.”

She disappears into the darkness behind him. “Yeah, not bad for the paycheck.” A laugh. _Fuck_ , that laugh. His stomach rolls. “The circuit breaker should be around here somewhere, in theory. Maybe it’s in this room.”

Not long ago, the idea of wandering into a tiny room with Nancy Drew would’ve made his pants grow tight, but now it just makes him sick. Still, he follows close behind guiding her with his flashlight.

This room is barren. There’s mold growing in the corners of the walls and the floor is covered in dirt, but there’s not much to see beside a thick, metal box hooked to the side. On the opposite side, there’s a large indent in the wall leading up to some massive wooden doors. It looks like some sort of direct entrance to the basement from the outside.

A few steps ahead of him there’s an old newspaper thrown onto the ground. It’s dirty and water-stained, but Ned picks it up anyway. “This is from like twenty years ago,” He mutters, but Nancy is already fussing with her keys and the circuit breaker. “Looks like there was some sort of lawsuit here.”

“What?” Nancy says suddenly. “Give me that.”

She grabs the newspaper from him, scouring the page with her big eyes. He reads over her shoulder, careful to keep his chin tucked into his neck. Still, he can’t avoid smelling her shampoo. His stomach tosses again. He loved that shampoo.

The headline catches his eye first.

 _SCIENTIST BROUGHT TO COURT: OVER 10MIL IN DAMAGES_.

Ned can barely read the weathered ink beyond that point. The article explains some sort of court case that was dismissed by the judge when the defendant never showed up for court. In fact, he was never found. The article seeps into a watery mess. There’s not much else to read.

“We shouldn’t be touching any of this stuff,” Nancy whispers. She folds the newspaper gently, stuffing it into her back pocket. Somehow, that doesn’t make sense.

“We shouldn’t be touching it, but… you’re going to keep it?”

If it had been anyone else down there, they would have missed Nancy’s changing facial expressions. But it’s Ned, and he’s sorry to admit that he knows her better than he probably knows himself. The girl in front of him has changed over the past year, but that face, that _one_ face she makes is still the same.

It’s the light in her eyes, the way she strokes her hair, her tongue running across her white teeth. She’s nervous. She’s scrambling. She’s lying.

Ned could call her out on it. He could demand an answer. She owes him that, at least. But he lost his privileges to get involved in her personal business a long time ago. He tightens the muscles in his jaw and closes his mouth. There’s no use arguing. Whatever she’s up to, she’ll have to tell him herself. He’s no longer interested.

Or, that’s what he’ll tell himself.

She drifts back to the circuit breaker, finally pulling open the door. There’s a series of buttons and levers, but it’s nothing too fancy. “It’s… creepy, down here.” Ned says, a chill tiptoeing around his ankles.

“To say the least,” Nancy shrugs. “Shine your flashlight over here so I can see.”

He does what he’s told. He stands a good few inches above Nancy. It had worked in his favor, once, being this tall. She used to cradle her head on his sternum and he used to kiss the space between her eyes, right on the bridge of her nose.

He gulps. Now is not the time.

Nancy grunts, flinging down one of the larger two levers, but nothing happens. He’d expected some sort of release from this darkness, but nothing comes. After pulling down the second lever and pressing a few of the buttons, Nancy sighs and shakes her head. “Shit. He warned me about this.”

“About what?”

She swings the door of the circuit breaker. “John told me we might run into problems with the electric. There’s a backup generator in a shed out back.”

“You mean… _outside_?” Ned groans.

“Someone can start a fire in the living room while I go out back,” She says, slipping through the doorway. “Or, actually…” She flips open her cell-phone. Ned doesn’t miss that the background is a generic picture of some flowers. It _used_ to be the two of them outside her house. Not anymore. “There really is no signal around here.”

He raps his knuckles against the cinderblock wall. “Try next to the cellar door over there.”

She moves closer, extending her hand up until it’s resting on the handle. “I’ll call Bess and she if she’ll be willing to take Joe out to the shed and start the power,” She says, pressing the phone against her cheek.

In that moment, Ned is certain he’s jealous of a phone.

A _phone_ , of all things.

She draws back, furrowing her brow. “No answer,” She comments, breathing out a frustrated sigh. “Maybe they got a little… distracted.”

“More like preoccupied,” Ned laughs. She turns and heads for the basement steps, and just like before, Ned follows behind her, wishing _he_ was the one preoccupied instead of Joe.

With Deirdre.

Definitely with Deirdre.


	5. body heat

**Joe Hardy**

* * *

 

 _By the time they finally stop running_ , Joe is positive he’s lost both his lower limbs to the cold. He can hardly feel his toes anymore, not to mention his fingers, and his legs ache from exhaustion. He leans over and puts his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath, and when he looks up he has absolutely _no_ fucking idea where he is.

Bess pants beside him, looking over her shoulder every passing second. “What… what the fuck _was_ that?” She breathes, pulling her arms around herself. “Oh, God. _Please_ tell me it’s not a bear. Please, please, _please_ , Joe—”

“Shh,” He says, listening for sounds above the wind. He can’t hear anything. They must be alone. “I think we’re okay now.”

He scans the area preemptively, looking for signs of a connecting trail. There’s nothing around besides more forest, except he can sort of see a little shack in the distance. He tugs at Bess’ coat. “What?” She says, squinting to see passed him. “Oh my god, _no_.”

“Bess, I’m trying not to freeze out here, okay? Just go.”

She follows him without another word. He walks around the perimeter of the shed, searching for any animal tracks—or whatever else people look for in the wilderness—before throwing his shoulder into the door at the front. It flies open easily, and he pushes his foot inward to prop it open.

“After you, m’lady,” He says with a grin, and she stalks inside, barely able to offer him a smile. It’s okay, though. He’s dealt with fussy women before.

Correction: he’s dealt with _Bess_ before.

Challenge accepted.

He pulls the door closed behind himself. Bess ducks underneath a broken board and begins to pace. Even in the darkening moonlight, Joe can see the fantastic swell of her hips. He shifts onto his other leg. His pants are growing tight.

“This is just fucking _great_ ,” She says, throwing up her arms in frustration. “We’re stuck out here in the middle of nowhere and there’s a bear chasing after us. And now we have no idea how to get back.”

He pretends to look shocked, opening his mouth wide. “You _doubt_ me, Bess Marvin.”

“Don’t be an ass,” She snaps. He loves when she gets mad. These tiny wrinkles form at the base of her forehead, right in between her eyebrows, and her nose gets crinkled up like a tiny rabbit. She’s delicious. “We’re fucked.”

“Bess, calm down,” Joe says, glancing down at the soggy earth. The ground is free from the terrifying grip of snow, thanks to the metal ceiling, but there are a couple chains and a padlock lying broken in the dirt. Nothing useful. “It’s going to be _fine_ , I promise.”

She begins pacing again, one foot in front of the other, both hands clamped to the side of her head. Then, she reaches down and pats her butt, then her front pockets, then fishes her hands in and out of her coat. Her face reddens. “No,” She whines. “My phone. My phone—it’s gone!”

“You must’ve dropped it outside,” He shrugs.

“We have to go get it—” She practically throws herself at him, arms flailing. In literally every other fantasy, this would be considered a plus—except now she’s thrashing like a toddler in a highchair, fighting to get to the door behind him. He’s a few inches shorter than his brother, but Joe has the same broad shoulders. He grabs her wrists. “Joe, come on, my _phone_ —”

“—is probably an icicle right now, yes,” He says, eyebrows shooting up on his forehead. “Or in the stomach of a bear. We can look for it in the morning when it’s light out. Okay?”

She stops fighting him which is a goddamn miracle and rubs her round face. The cold makes her cheeks pink and hair stick to her forehead. Still, he sort of likes that she looks like a complete mess.

“God,” She says, tearing off her gloves. “What are we supposed to do now?”

It’s a loaded question. He can go several ways with it. His brain is working a mile a minute, analyzing the best strategy. But she’s no longer the girl down by the tree, bathed in the colors of the sunset. She’s blue and freezing and hopelessly upset. His jokes fall into his throat before he can utter them.

“Relax,” He says, forcing a small laugh. He takes a step forward, minimizing the space between them. She counters his move, stepping back, again and again, until her back is flat up against the shaking wall of the shed. Somehow, the wind trickles through the gaps and niches in the wood. It tussles with her hair. “Everything is going to be fine. I promise.”

It could be his angle, his height towering over hers, noses almost touching, but Joe swears right there he’s never seen Bess look so—so—

“What are we supposed to do, hmm? Sit here and _freeze_?”

He just can’t help himself. “You know, they say the best way to keep warm is through body heat,” He moves a millimeter closer, resting his arm on the wall behind her. Her chest rubs up against his upper abdomen muscles. She flushes. “And… well, we’d need to be naked to make that happen.”

She throws her arm out and it connects with Joe’s side. It hurts like pins and needles and he slams his hand into the wall again, inches away from her head, to stable himself. She laughs outright at him, toying with the buttons on his winter jacket.

“Can you, maybe, write me a dissertation about the benefits of human body heat?” She says, still laughing, her hands working their way to the bottom of his coat. He clenches his jaw. “You know, with cited sources?”

“MLA or APA?” He finds himself saying, eyes fixated on her tiny hands. What he would give to feel those hands around—

“MLA,” She whispers, flicking the zipper down the center of his jacket.

“I’m no good at writing papers,” He groans, moving his head slightly above her to peer down her shirt. His hands begin to sweat.

God. Damn.

“Practice makes perfect,” She says. She’s fumbling with the hem of his long-sleeved shirt now, dainty fingers trailing right above his waist. He can hear his heart in his chest, beating, raging, pulsing.

Her breath makes little clouds spin in the cool air. He dips his chin into her, tightening his jaw muscles again until their lips are separated by only an inch of lingering space. But no, he won’t go the whole way. He’ll let her do it. He _needs_ her to do it.

Bess pulls the shirt out of his jeans and rubs her hand across his bare skin, rolling her knuckles over his protruding muscles, every movement feeling like a thousand tiny fireworks. He stays still, focused, concentrated, watching her eyes move down to his belt buckles as her fingers follow close behind. She’s doing this on _purpose_ , the little shit. She’s trying to outdo him.

Elizabeth Marvin was always the girl he left behind. Frank had his own…. reservations, of sorts, but most of them hung in the air like laundry, soaked in emotion. Joe, on the other hand, kept most of his feelings a secret. It’s not like he doesn’t want anyone to know. He’s spent most of his life as an open book, hiding behind his humor while Frank hides behind stuffy sweaters and denial. They are more alike than Joe wants to admit.

When they’d left River Heights, Joe watched Bess out of his bedroom window. She gathered around the moving van, watching Frank hung Nancy just a _little_ too long, and then caught him staring. It was awkward, yes, but not really embarrassing. Bess was cute. He was decently attractive. She was single. He was single. They made sense.

But then years went on without any word and Joe sort of lost sight of the girl back in River Heights until Nancy phoned about some trip up to some ski lodge. Joe was positive he’d gotten over Bess’ lopsided smile and little curves, but he was so, _so_ wrong.

And _fuck_ , did he love to be wrong.

“When is this, uh, paper due again?” He whispers, his voice making her break her gaze for a minute. But then she’s back to her antics, swirling the tips of her fingers around his belly button, trying hard not to smile. She’s good at this.

“Today,” She grins, her tongue peeking out behind white teeth. “And it’s _half_ of your final grade.”

“Only half?” He jokes, keeping eye contact. Her fingers are tickling his stomach but he will not move from this spot. He wants her to keep doing it. He wants her to do it forever.

She hesitates. He can see the little cogs in her beautiful brain working, twisting, grinding against each other. She’s thinking about her next move, her counter, her rebuttal. But he’s too busy staring at her mouth to realize that she’s got one finger tucked inside the waistband of his underwear. She keeps it there, smiling.

“I almost forgot,” She says, her voice sounding breathless. “You have a pop quiz.”

“Test me, baby,” He grins. “I got all the answers.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. “What color are my eyes?”

“Lame question,” He snorts. “Blue.”

She pulls her finger closer to herself and the elastic follows her before it snaps back against his waist. “It’s an _extended response_ question, Joe. One word answers won’t cut it.”

He’s so frustrated he could scream. There’s a building knot in his stomach and his pants are now entirely too uncomfortable. But he’s not leaving this spot. “They’re—” He trails off, watching an eyebrow creep up her face.

She expects him to fail. Oh, how wrong she is. He’s sat into enough poetry readings to know the answer she wants.

“They’re like icicles on a spring morning,” He mutters. It sounds stupider out loud, but he can’t resist that smile on her face. “Gone in a second and impossible to forget.”

She lets out a tiny sigh, massaging his hips. _Jesus_. He wants this to be over and he wants it to last forever. “Four points,” She nods. “One last question.”

“Give it to me.”

His voice is rushed and awkward but she likes it, he can tell. Her pursed lips wiggle their way into a little crooked grin, _that_ crooked grin, the same one from five years ago, the one he can’t get out of his head.

“How long are you going to wait before kissing me, exactly? Fifteen minutes? Two hours? Three? Four—”

He presses his mouth hard against hers, feeling the words stick to the back of her throat. His tongue invades the corners of her lips, finally peeking through the bridge of teeth to meet hers. He’s sweaty and vulnerable and she’s growing impatient.

He kisses her again, and again, and again, until he can feel her breath on his neck and her arms begin to shake. He pulls her jacket off, her sweater, her tank-top, until her bare skin touches the fabric of his t-shirt.

Not happening. That needs to go.

His shirt is off in seconds, falling carelessly into the dirt. That’s what they make washing machines for, right?

She grabs little folds of skin by his chest, pressing one hand against his abdomen muscles. Their kissing is sloppy at best but it’s the greatest thing Joe’s ever done with his life, no doubt, surpassing his final grade in geometry or the burglar case he went on with Frank when they were kids.

He pulls her up into his arms and she wraps both legs around his torso, moving her lips across his face and down to his jawline. He takes this time to feel around the length of her body, exploring her curves with his hands, all the while keeping her upright and off the ground.

Finally, he moves to a little shelf bolted to the wall on the other side of the room and plops her down, letting her run fingers through his thick, unmanageable blond hair. She tugs on it gently, bringing his mouth back up to meet hers, and he doesn’t stop to question it. She smells like vanilla and tastes like peppermint and it’s so wonderful that he can barely stand it, yanking one hand off her side to cradle her face.

It’s a romantic gesture, one she’s definitely not used to, because she pulls away immediately, nuzzling her cheek into his palm. “Hey,” She says, grinning. “What happened to the paper?”

He laughs, rubbing his thumb in circles over her cheekbones. “Any way I could have an extension?”

She leans in and kisses him again, but this time it’s softer, gentler. He examines the little lines under her nose, the dimples accenting her big lips, the indents on her forehead. She’s half hidden behind a mess of sweaty, tangled blonde hair. He pushes it out of the way, focused on the way her lips part when she inhales, the little hairs on her eyebrows she forgot to pluck.

God, she’s an absolute mess. And he loves it.

Her little noises, the way she whines when she walks long distances, her obsession with holding hands and the way she eats pretzels. Her long, stringy, dishwater blonde hair.

That _fucking_ crooked smile.

“Joe,” She says suddenly, her eyes growing wide. “Are… are you bleeding?”

“What?” He draws back, glancing at his bare shoulders. He can’t see anything but a plethora of sunspots and freckles, and then—

There’s a drop of blood right on the edge of his left shoulder, trailing down his bicep. He twists his arm around in the moonlight, trying to see some sort of scar, or cut, or _anything_. Maybe he injured himself while they were running and didn’t notice until now.

But still, that didn’t explain its perfect circular stain or the lack of blood on his clothes.

He goes to touch it, shoving the blood off him with his thumb. Then another splatter hits him, coating his thumb in a thin layer of crimson.

 Joe looks up and staggers back in terror as his eyes adjust to the light. He’s not surprised when Bess screams, joining him on the other side of the room, still shirtless, ducking behind his height to shield herself.

A… _body_?

No, it’s a deer.

He exhales. “It’s just a deer, Bess. It’s okay.”

“A deer?” She repeats. “What the hell is a _deer_ doing out here, strapped up like that?”

Joe had only been in the Scouts for a couple of months before his father pulled up out to work at ATAC, but he watched enough documentaries on the nature channel to know it’s been quartered and strung up to bleed out. Most of the internal organs are missing. The only thing that remains is the carcass itself, hanging upside-down by its hind legs.

“I… don’t know,” He mumbles. “I mean—this is what you do when you quarter a deer, but…”

“Someone is going to _eat_ it?”

“Looks that way,” He says, pulling her shirt off the ground. She slips in on quietly behind him, giving him time to look at the animal more closely. It’s been skinned already—or rather, _half_ skinned—and there’s a lengthy incision on its abdomen. Whoever did this certainly knows their way around a knife, to say the least. “I don’t get it.”

“Put your clothes back on,” Bess says, shoving his shirt into his hands. He dresses away from the slaughtered deer. It’s hung a good distance up away from the floor, but the smell is already infesting their tiny space. How they managed to go this long without noticing it is unbelievable, and he doesn’t want to calculate those odds. It’s been hung up for a reason.

Someone will be back.

“Let’s get back to the lodge,” Joe says, nodding to the doorway. “We should… probably tell someone about this.”

They begin to walk outside in the snow. Bess’ boots drag along the coarse earth. “Yeah, that there’s some sort of _psycho_ who’s—”

There are tears welling in her eyes, and it pains Joe more than he’d like to admit. Granted, he doesn’t like to watch any of his friends cry, but he and Bess…

They weren’t just friends.

“Bess,” He calls, drawing her near. She stuffs her face into his jacket. “He’s not a psycho. It’s just a hunter. He probably doesn’t realize he’s trespassing. It’s okay.”

“But in the _winter_ , Joe, really? Don’t they need to have a license for this sort of thing?”

“Maybe things are different around here,” He says, but he doesn’t even believe himself. The entire thing has shaken him. He needs to get back and talk to Nancy.

No, he needs to get back and talk to his brother. In private. No use scaring the rest of the girls. It’ll only make their trip unbearable.

“Look,” She stammers. “There’s an old path. Maybe it’ll lead us to the lodge.”

“Maybe our friend from before can help us find our way back.”

He’s trying to cheer her up, but it’s not working. Referencing a killer bear probably wasn’t the best idea.

She’s walking faster now and he jogs to meet up with her again. She rounds a series of bends, clinging to the path.

“Bess, look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

She tightens her grip on herself. “It’s okay,” She says. “Let’s just get back safe.”


	6. revelations

**Deirdre Shannon**

_After George disappears to take another_ smoke break, Deirdre finally finds what she’s been looking for: a working flashlight.

The basement steps are uneven and cold, but she takes them two at a time until they bottom out into a much larger room. From the looks of it, the basement is nearly twice the size of the lodge with many different storage rooms and connecting chambers. Ned could be anywhere down here.

She looks around the main room first, kicking over some bins and cardboard boxes. Most of it is holiday decorations and other family-related stuff. She decides not to pry into them too much. She’s a _guest_ , after all. She might hate Nancy, but she won’t disrespect the owners.

She passes by a few opened boxes and peers in with the flashlight. They’re stuffed to the brim with children’s clothing—boy’s, to be exact—and overflowing along the sides. Taking a step back, she realizes that nearly half the room is covered in children’s attire. Each set of boxes seems to correspond with the seasons; there’s everything from shorts to winter socks shoved carelessly into different containers.

She remembers the family photo from earlier. The owners had three children, though, and unless they dressed their girls up in shirts with monster trucks and zombies, all of this was for the little boy. There are no girl clothes in sight.

Strange. Who would store heaps of clothing down here in a damp basement?

She presses on, popping in and out of more connecting rooms, still without sign of Ned. She can feel her heart branding the inside of her chest.

Her flashlight drifts over an old working table with some medical equipment. There’s a stethoscope, a scalpel, and other various tools scattered amongst an old microscope and some test tube racks. It looks as if one of the pieces was moved recently; the dust intent in the wood has shifted. Ned must’ve passed by this way.

There’s something about the basement that makes her hair stand on edge and she’s perfectly okay with making a scene, especially when it involves someone as elusive as Nancy Drew. She clears her throat.  “ _Ned_!” She screams, her voice carrying through the room. “Come _out_ here, _please_!”

There’s no answer. She kicks a few empty boxes and they tumble to the ground. It doesn’t make a lot of noise, but it’s enough to draw someone’s attention away from blue eyes and hair that looks like wet straw.

“ _Ned_ , I’m serious!” She screams again, cupping her hands over her mouth. “You better come out right now!”

She’s beginning to panic. Already, images flash in and out of her mind. She can see it already, stumbling into another decrepit room, watching her boyfriend kiss the side of Nancy’s neck. They’re probably hiding somewhere, right now, scrambling to get their clothes back on, laughing about how fucking _stupid_ she is, high-fiving for their elaborate plan to get her all the way up here and humiliate her in front of everyone. She can almost _hear_ it, two voices snaking out of the cement, teasing her.

_Deirdre, you fucking idiot._

“Ned, I’m not kidding!” She yells, tapping a medical instrument on the table. It sounds louder than the boxes, the noise reverberating off the cold walls.

 _Come out, come out, wherever you are_.

“Ned, get the fuck out here!” She crosses the room, poking her head into another dark room. There are some large pieces of artwork, but no space big enough to hide two sweaty bodies. She groans. “I swear to god Ned, this isn’t funny!”

The wind outside makes the whole house wheeze. Above her, the floorboards creak. She just wants to get the fuck _out_ of here, back to her bedroom with the cold sheets and Ned’s warm body. Why isn’t he answering?

Her voice feels raw. The more she yells, the more panicked she becomes, stroking her arms to somehow push the goosebumps back into her skin. This is ridiculous. She should just go home. If he wants to be here with Nancy, so be it. But she will _not_ stay to be tormented.

“Okay, Ned, I’m fucking leaving!” She screams, banging the flashlight against the wall. If she’s lucky, it’ll break, and the darkness will swallow her whole. That would be much better than drowning in anxiety. “You win! Enjoy your perfect fucking break with your perfect little—”

“Deirdre?”

She swings around and faces the only room she hadn’t bothered to check. It’s Ned.

His face is flushed but he looks just like she’d left him. Clothes still on, mop of curly hair fixed toward the left, pants zipped.

She cocks her head to the side. “Where the _hell_ have you been?”

“I went to go find the breaker, babe,” He says, stuffing his hands into his pockets. She doesn’t care to know where they were seconds before her arrival. The very thought makes her want to pass out. “What are you screaming about?”

Her cheeks flood with embarrassment. “I—I was worried about you, and I came down and couldn’t find you,” She sputters. “I got nervous.”

He slides a hand up her arm. “I’m fine. I’m right here, see?”

His touch consoles her for a second, but Deirdre’s thoughts quickly blaze again, red hot with anger. “Where’s Nancy? What took you so long?”

“It took us some time find the bre—”

“ _Where_ is she?” She fumes, pushing his hand off her arm. He shakes his head. “Is she _naked_? Did you do something, Ned?”

“What? No!”

Her arms, tightly crossed over her chest, fall limp to her side.

Ned exhales. He’s got this insanely irritating way of looking adorable when he gets stressed. A tiny curl spirals down to kiss his eyebrow and he pushes it aside hastily, rubbing the inner corners of his eyes. “Nothing happened, Deidre. I promise.”

It’s so hard not to believe him, even after conjuring up some sort of false sense of reality over the past fifteen minutes. Regret smacks her in the face. “I’m sorry, Ned,” She says. “I didn’t mean—I’m sorry.”

She hates apologies. They’re always laced with sarcasm or forced out of someone’s mouth when you least expect it. The last apology she got was from her father two days before he walked out on her mother with his new family. After that, apologies lost their luster. They meant little to her and, in turn, she rarely dished them out, save for some wild exceptions.

This is one of those times.

Ned’s face softens. “It’s okay,” He says. “I guess given our _history_ —”

“Which history?” Deirdre scoffs. “Your history with Nancy or our history behind her back?”

“Both.”

“Well, I just—”

It’s hard for Deirdre not to frown when Nancy comes out of the adjoining room, hair tucked behind her ears, looking positively fucking beautiful, even in the flickering light. Her cheeks redden at the sight of Deirdre. “Oh. Hey. We were just finishing up back here.”

Deirdre’s nostrils flare. Bad fucking choice of words, Drew. “The power is still out,” She snaps. “I was getting lonely.”

“Well, he’s all yours.”

Strike two.

Ned steps between them, ushering Deirdre back towards the doorway and to the main hallway of the basement. Behind him, Nancy idles by herself, flicking her phone in the area and back down to her face, back and forth, like some sort of stupid dance.

Once they are alone again, Deirdre shoves Ned so hard she feels like she might push his bones right out of his skin. “He’s _all yours_?” She spits.

“Shh!” Ned groans, staggering back to his feet. “Come on, Deirdre, you know she didn’t mean it that way.”

“Do I?” Deirdre blinks. “Do I know?”

“Yes, you know,” He bites. “Nothing happened. I swear.”

“Kiss me, then.”

He steps forward and cups her chin in one of his big hands, drawing her face up close to his. Her toes begin to tingle. This is what she’d been waiting for. At last, his lips part to meet her own, wavering there for a moment before drawing away again. Her mouth feels cold when he draws away.

“I just don’t like her,” Deirdre says, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “I don’t like when she’s around you.”

“It’s okay,” Ned sighs. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“No, you weren’t.”

He presses his forehead against her own. “We can go to bed now. Nancy is going to look out back for the generator. The power should be on soon. And the heat.”

“Your warm enough for me, Nickerson,” She says, pulling down on the collar of his sweatshirt. He offers her a small smile and pulls back, intertwining his fingers with hers.

The two of them begin to walk, passing through the same rooms filled with dust and old memories. “They sure have a lot of shit,” Deirdre mutters. “I wonder if they’re ever going to come back and get any of it.”

“This entire place makes me uneasy,” Ned admits, squeezing her hand. “It’ll be better tomorrow when we get to ski and hang out in the sun.”

“Don’t forget tonight,” Deirdre coos, falling into a skip beside him. His face spreads with color.

“I won’t.”

She begins to bounce up the stairs, still holding onto Ned’s hand, when he stops and pulls, stopping her mid-step. “What?” She says, twirling around to face him.

“Are you—are you okay with all of this?” He says quietly, grabbing her other hand.

“Okay with what?”

“You know,” He sighs again. She’s getting tired of hearing him sigh for the wrong reasons. “Being here. Not just because of Nancy, but… just because of all of it. You don’t get along with any of them. I’m just starting to think this wasn’t a good idea.”

She could be mean. She could be horribly, ruthlessly mean. She could gut his emotions without a second thought, kick him back down the stairs, slap the sense out of his face for even suggesting such a thing. She doesn’t care about any of these people, their colorless faces, their less-than-amusing commentary. She could care less about Bess’ new boy toy, George’s cigarette addiction, or Frank’s crumbling attitude.

She cares about the boy standing in front of her with long legs and honey-blond hair and a heart the size of a skyscraper. That’s all it’s ever been about, anyway. Him.

“Ned,” She says. “I’m fine. I promise.”

“I just want to be sure, you know? Because, well, I’m never really _sure_ about anything, and—”

Her index finger quiets him. She rests it on the curve of his upper lip. “You can be _sure_ that I love you, Ned Nickerson, and I’m perfectly content with being with you all week. I don’t care about anyone else. That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

He plants a kiss on her forehead and nods, wiggling by to jog up the stairs. She follows him, swimming in his cologne, not even bothering to notice that he didn’t even say he loved her back.

* * *

 


	7. wanted

**Frank Hardy**

* * *

 

 _Frank wakes up groggy_. He’s half expected to have slept the entire night, but judging by the dark gradient outside, he’s only been asleep for an hour or two. The bed is too small for his long legs and he stretches out, his feet dangling over the edge, trying to make himself feel more awake than he is. After a moment, he gives up. He’s perpetually tired and continuously stressed out. Even a nap wouldn’t help. He’s just destined to be this way.

He thinks back to their arrival and Ned’s smart mouth. Frank would’ve graciously knocked the spit out of his mouth for a nickel, but he shakes his head to himself. He’d do that for free. Watching Ned’s scrawny little body hit the floor would be like the ball dropping on New Year’s: his version of a perfect celebration.

But a skinny girl with strawberry-blonde hair kept his anger in check, for the most part. He’d managed to float through that altercation unscathed. Even when he caught Deirdre yelling, she was half as annoying as Ned could ever be. Still, Frank is lost in a constant cycle of self-deprecation. Nancy had _dated_ that guy. Obviously, there was something about him that she admired.

He rolls himself up and off the bed. The lodge is still and the air is thick, but the chill is unmistakable. The power is still out. How long had it been? Looking out of one of the dirty windows, he sees the trees shift and move in the wind. Instinctively, he wonders what became of his little brother and his trip down to watch the sunset. Joe should be back by now—and it’s a miracle Frank didn’t hear his return.

He takes a look in the mirror and immediately regrets it, just like always. There’s nothing to see. Thick eyebrows, wide nose, brown eyes. Boring, unremarkable, insignificant. As if Nancy would ever notice anyone that resembled a tree. She like trees, sure. But she’d never _date_ a tree.

His thoughts are cut short when he exits his bedroom, only to find Nancy with her arms thrown over the railing, waving her phone around in the dark. Her eyes are swollen and her cheeks are puffy. His stomach grows tight. She’s been crying.

“Everything okay?” He says carefully, and she turns halfway to look at him before looking back at her phone. When he joins her at the railing, he sees the dark circles underneath her eyes and the tear stains lining her pale face.

“I’m fine,” She says, rubbing her forehead to shield his view. But he’s already seen everything he needed to see. “Bess and Joe aren’t back. I tried calling, but there wasn’t an answer. I don’t think the signal is strong enough.”

“They _still_ aren’t back?” He says, pinching the bridge of his nose with his index finger and his thumb. “What could they be doing out there? Rolling around in the god damn snow?”

She laughs a little but her voice breaks. “No idea,” She says. “The circuit breaker didn’t work. We need to find the backup generator outside.”

There’s a certain hesitance in her phone that Frank is drawn too, but he doesn’t want to seem too eager, so he nods. “Makes sense,” He says, and when that doesn’t generate some sort of conversation, he adds, “Are you sure that’s… that’s all?”

“Yeah,” She says. “I mean… no.”

“Do you… want to talk about it?”

“It’s just hard, I suppose,” She says with a little sniff. “Being around Ned is just a little harder than I expected.”

 _Oh_.

It hits him all at once. He’d never expected in a million years that he’d be in a ski lodge in the middle of the night with Nancy Drew, and he _definitely_ never expected to be here discussing her ex-boyfriend, of all things. Best case scenario, she’d fall on the ski slopes and he’d help her up and they’d laugh about it for the rest of the day. Worst case scenario, he’d fall off a nearby cliff.

Somehow, this is worse.

“I… can imagine,” He pauses. “I don’t really know what to say. I wish I knew… how to… make it better.”

Even after they broke up, even when Nancy is inches away from him, her skin radiating in the pale moonlight, Frank finds himself in the middle of Ned’s bullshit. He washed his hands of this a long time ago. He doesn’t _want_ to go back to being their little middleman. That was _Joe_ ’s job. He was the one who assumed the role of their love counselor before things went south.

But she’s crumbling in front of him and he can’t stand seeing her this way, so his grievances settle into the floorboards and stay there. For now, at least.

“It’s okay,” She says. “I brought this on myself. I mean, I should’ve known ahead of time that this wasn’t a good idea. Bess even told me not to invite him.”

“You couldn’t have known—” He begins, but he closes his mouth. Yes, she knew. She knew this would happen, she knew _exactly_ what she was doing, bringing her ex-boyfriend into the hornet’s nest with a queen bee zooming around, but Frank can’t tell her that. “Just try to enjoy the week, okay?”

“I should be okay in the morning,” She says, burying her phone back into her back pocket. He doesn’t look. “I just need to take a hot shower.”

Oh, _Christ_.

“We’re all tired,” he says. “Except my brother, apparently, who has decided he’s going to be a mountain man. I mean, really, where the hell could he be?”

“My calls went to Bess’ voicemail,” Nancy shrugs. “I honestly don’t know.

“Where did you say the backup generator was?”

“In a shed out back. I don’t know exactly where, but it should be close.”

He stoops down onto one knee to retie the laces on his winter boots. When he stands, she’s pressing into her red eyes with her fingers. “Let’s go for a walk,” He says, heading for the stairs. “Some fresh air might do you some good. We can find the generator and try to locate my idiot brother in the process.”

“Hey,” She says with a little smile. “ _Your_ idiot brother is with _my_ best friend. Don’t forget that.”

Frank rolls his eyes. “It’s sort of hard to forget that.”

 

* * *

 

Five minutes later, Frank is climbing down the back steps off the kitchen porch. The snow crunches underneath his feet as he walks, but it’s better than awkward silence, so he doesn’t complain. Nancy leads him down a little trail extending northeast off the property, through a patch of thick pine trees and some boulders. After they make it a little ways down the path, Frank dials Joe’s familiar number and waits.

To his surprise, Joe answers on the second ring. “Joe,” Frank huffs. “Where the hell are you guys?”

Nancy turns around.

“Frank—there’s a bear—chasing us—found a shed—”

“What?” He says, closing his ear with a finger.

“—hunter—bleeding deer and we—”

It’s impossible to hear Joe’s incessant ramblings through the static. The reception really is terrible out here. He ends the call and shoves his phone down into his jacket pocket, gesturing forward with a finger. “No idea what he was saying,” Frank grumbles. “Something about a bear and a shed and a hunter? I don’t know.”

Nancy furrows her brow. “You think they’re okay?”

He nods. “They’re fine. Just lost and hungry, probably. They should make it back okay. They didn’t go far.”

They keep walking, sidestepping some deep mounds of snow and fallen branches before Frank can see the shed bordering the edge of another patch of trees. The outside is unlocked, thankfully, and he props the door open long enough for Nancy to slide inside.

It’s cramped inside the shed. The generator is massive and takes up a large amount of space in the corner, leaving little room for him to stand comfortably without bumping into Nancy in the process. But the wind outside is unbearable, so he throws the door shut behind him, rocking back on his heels to avoid rubbing up against her.

“Okay… how does this thing…?”

He gestures to his position, encouraging her to switch places with him. She moves sideways, barely scraping by, her left hand grazing up against his thigh. He stills for a second, trying not to let the feeling overwhelm his body. He’d been thinking about this exact moment for years, but it never involved him standing in a beat-up, lousy shack in the freezing cold. He shifts his attention to the generator.

He fusses with it, trying to examine its power source and the mechanisms running along the side. Behind him, Nancy leans up against the wall, watching him work. It’s unsettling, and her eyes are burning a hole in his back, but he crouches down anyway, feeling the cold metal with his bare hands. One of these buttons should do the trick.

“Whoa,” She says behind him, but he doesn’t bother to look.  He keeps on huffing and puffing over the generator, feeling the cold squeezing at his shoulders. “Frank, look at this.”

It nearly takes forever for him to stand upright again and his knees ache underneath his weight. When he turns to look over his shoulder, Nancy holds a thin piece of paper in her hands. It had been nailed to the wall.

“What is it?”

“Some sort of… wanted poster.”

“What? You mean like the ones in those old western movies?” He says with a little laugh, grabbing the paper from her hands. “Give it here.”

The paper is old and yellowed with age, but the concealment from the harsh weather outside has kept it intact. There are big, bold letters at the top. _WANTED_. Below that, there’s a picture of a man in his forties with bug eyes and a huge mustache covering his upper lip. The bottom half of the poster is torn, but he’s just able to make out the date in the corner. _February 4 th, 1998_.

“It’s ancient,” Nancy whispers. “I wonder if…”

“Hold this,” He says, shoving the paper back at her hands. He stoops down toward the generator again, fumbling around with some buttons, before pulling down hard on a lever in the back. It whines to life, sputtering, but eventually steadies out into a low, rhythmic hum. “Okay, sorry. That’s done. Now, what were you saying about the poster?”

“Nothing. I wonder if they ever caught the guy.”

“If they didn’t, he should be dead by now,” Frank says with a shrug. “If they didn’t catch him back then—there’s no way he survived a winter up here alone.”

“You’re probably right,” She says, and the paper falls from her fingers onto the floor of the shed. “Still, it’s a little creepy.”

“It’s… very creepy.”

She’s not moving, but Frank doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the generator is on and the lodge is meters away, beaming with electricity. The thought of her taking a hot shower, _alone_ , makes him want to crawl out of his skin. He’d stay there for hours, watching her sway in the wind, but it’s cold and he’s cold and she’s cold and they can’t stay out here any longer.

“Uh, Nancy?”

“Yeah?”

“The uh—” He clears his throat. “The generator. It’s working.”

“Oh!” She says, blushing. He feels his throat grow tight. “Sorry. I didn’t even notice. My bad. Good job, though.”

And just like that she’s out of the doorway back into the claws of winter, leaving him standing alone in the shed looking like an idiot. He rejoins her quickly, making sure to close the door as tight as he can before walking away. He just wants to make sure it’s _really_ secure, you know, because someone could get in and they could lose power in the middle of the night, or an animal could get stuck—

“Frank? You coming?”

Okay, so he’s stalling.

He catches up with Nancy right as she steps onto the trail heading back to the lodge. She’s quieter than he expected but figures she must still be worried about Bess and Joe.

“If Joe doesn’t come back in the next fifteen minutes, I will personally go out to find him and give them both a wonderful escort home,” Frank jokes, and she grins. “Joe might have some trouble walking with my foot up his ass, but at least he’ll be back safe.”

She giggles. He feels light and airy like he could float up to the stars.

“Thank you for the consideration,” She says. “But no, I was actually thinking about something else.”

 _Please_ , for the love of God, don’t be about Ned.

“What’s that?”

“It won’t be very hard to believe,” She begins, biting her lower lip. Just like that, he’s bolted to the ground again, trying to focus his eyes on literally _anything_ else. Another pine tree? Interesting. “I’ve been researching this lodge for a little while now. As it turns out… there’s sort of a mystery behind it.”

A long, nervous breath escapes him. “You’re right,” He says. “Not really all that surprising.”

She looks embarrassed. He wants so desperately to find the right words to say, to tell her that she’s absolutely _not_ crazy, that he loved a good mystery just like anyone else—and that she’s the best kind of mystery because he’s been trying to figure her out for days, months, years—

“You want to hear about it?”

Yes. _Yes_. Yes.

“Sure,” He says slowly. “It’ll keep me entertained while I freeze to death.”

Probably not the most romantic thing he could’ve said, but she smiles all the same.


	8. momentum

**Bess Marvin**

* * *

 

_Trying to contact Frank_ was her last string of palpable hope, and now Bess is more scared than ever.  She clings to Joe’s side much like a wet blanket, maneuvering around mounds of snow in the attempt to keep her footing. He hasn’t spoken in quite some time, a definite sign of a problem. Bess has known Joe nearly all her life, and he’s never been well-rehearsed in keeping quiet or leaving food unattended on his dinner plate. She knows something isn’t right.

The skin on her lips is becoming withered and cracked in the cool December air, making speech a little painful. “Joe,” she says, stretching it out into three, long syllables. “Do you have any idea where we are going?”

“Y—”

The path they’re walking on seems to come alive within seconds. Above them, large industrial lights flicker and warm to life. Bess can see through the thick slab of fog now, down the large hill and even up above some of the shorter trees pocketing the mountain. Nancy must’ve found the generator. Good.

Joe thinks aloud. “They found the generator.”

Bess hums in response, pulling down on her hat to cover her tiny ears. They’re freezing.

“You okay?” He says.

She quickens her pace. “I’m fine, I just want to get back to the lodge and take a shower.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, Joe, _alone_ ,” She watches the muscles in his cheek tick and her face heats. “I’m sorry, I’m just scared, and—”

He fidgets with her fingers, finally rolling them between his until their hands are disconnected. Her arm falls limp back to her side, resting up against her hips. She shoves it back into her pockets, feeling her throat grow tight. He barely moves.

“What are you going to tell Frank?” She says after a moment, glancing over her shoulder. Did she just hear something?

“I’m going to tell him that we found a quartered deer in an old shed and there might be a group of hunters out here,” He says, not bothering to meet her eyes. “We’ll call down and report them to the sheriff in town for trespassing, or something. I don’t know. We’ll let Nancy handle it.”

“What about the bear?”

“The bear?”

“Yeah, Joe, the bear?”

“What _about_ the bear?”

Her palms are beginning to sweat. “You know, like the fact that we ran about a half mile from some animal back there in the woods? Any of this ringing a bell?”

Joe shrugs, pushing hair from his eyes. “Nothing to say, really. We got lucky.”

“We got _lucky_?” She says, stomping her foot down. Her foot slinks into five inches of snow, making her next step difficult. She toddles after him, face burning red from the cold. “Don’t you think the others deserve to know?”

“We might’ve just stumbled onto some cubs on accident,” he says. “It’s nothing to freak out about, Bess.”

“We could have died, Joe, what part of that doesn’t warrant a freak-out?”

“Well, we didn’t.”

“We could’ve!”

“But we didn’t.”

Her mouth hangs open in disbelief. “What’s the matter with you?”

“What’s the matter with _you_?” He says, eyes wide. “I’m cold and hungry and we’ve been walking for almost two hours now. I’m just trying not to ruin the whole weekend, that’s all.”

“So, if I tell the others about a potentially life-threatening situation, I’m ruining the weekend?” She stops walking, feeling the wind change direction. “Real nice, Joe. Thanks a lot.”

“That’s not what I—” He starts, but she pushes past him, checking his shoulder before taking the lead.

The shed was a mistake, kissing him was a mistake, _he_ is a mistake. She should’ve known never to trust a guy to take anything—her—specifically, not even blue-eyed, blond-haired Joseph Hardy. He’s as slick as oil and infectious and she’ll have no part of it anymore. No part of _him_ anymore.

She can see the scene play in her head like a movie. She’d crash through the front door, half-crying, expecting someone to be there with a warm blanket and slippers while she told all of them about being chased through the woods by some psychotic, man-eating bear. And instead of being supportive, Nancy would cock her head and tell her she’s being _dramatic_ , you’re so _dramatic_ , Bess. _You act better than those kids in the movies, Elizabeth_ , Nonny would say to her on Sunday mornings. She was always the poster child for emotional responses, the target of any bad joke, the punching bag of the group. She cried at sappy movies, she cried at puppy commercials, she cried watching little kids get off the bus. And she’s crying now, trudging through more snow and hating it almost as much as she hates Joe Hardy, with his stupid smile and stupid eyes and stupid mouth.

She can’t see more than a foot in front of her because of the hot tears streaming down her face, but the massive structure of the lodge comes into focus soon enough. She’s somewhere along the back side of the estate; she can see the big bay windows from the dining room area stretching up to hit the top of the roof. Without waiting for Joe, she climbs a set of stairs next to what looks like an old cellar door and practically collapses into the kitchen, holding onto one of the cabinets for support.

George is perched over one of the gas stoves, boiling water for tea. “Yes?”

“George, oh my _god_ , you would not _believe_ —”

“Quiet, quiet!” George says, waving some of the steam away from the pot. “I would prefer if you didn’t wake up Sleeping Beauty upstairs with her troll.”

The door creaks behind Bess, and Joe sneaks in through the same entrance and disappears into the living room and up the stairs. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, trying not to look perturbed. It’s not working, and George raises one of her thin eyebrows. “I’ll explain about that later. You will _not_ believe what happened to me out there.”

“You lost your virginity,” George says, and when she’s met with Bess’ slack-jawed expression, quickly adds, “Again?” Her face is painted with mock enthusiasm.

“I lost my virginity like four years ago to Dave Hoffman after junior prom—”

“Okay, so I was kidding?” George interrupts, transferring the hot water to a tiny coffee mug. “Tell me what happened.”

Bess, having difficulty keeping her voice at a fixed volume, jumps to the other side of her cousin to relay the story of her night, purposefully leaving out her little adventurous escapade with Someone in the lodge. George nods along, half-interested, pulling up on her teabag every now and again. When it feels like her entire vocabulary has been exhausted at length, Bess slides down onto one of the sticky sofas in the living room.

“If there was a contest for the number of words per minute,” George says, sipping her tea. “You would win.”

“I’m not interested in your sarcasm right now, dear cousin.” Bess rubs her pale face. “I’m interested in some advice.”

“You’re asking the wrong person.”

“Okay, fine. Where’s Nancy?”

“Finding the backup generator with Mr. Frowns Too Often,” George shrugs. Bess purses her lips into a flat line, and George sighs. “I don’t know, honestly. They left like a half hour ago to find the generator but they’re not back yet. I bet they’re looking for you. Did you try calling her?”

“I lost my phone,” Bess says, squeezing her eyes shut. She’s replaying a recorded lecture from her father in her head, his booming voice making her head swell. “She can’t get ahold of me.”

“Well why don’t you find Joe and have him call his dutiful brother?”

“We’re not speaking right now.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

George nuzzles herself into the folds of the couch next to Bess. “I don’t want to talk about it, really,” she says. “Unless you really want to talk about it. Then I’ll listen.”

“No,” Bess frowns. “I don’t want to talk about it either. I don’t want to talk about him at all, really. Not for the rest of my adult life.”

“Deal,” George murmurs.

“Boy problems aside, I can’t believe you have nothing to say about a killer bear on the loose!”

George laughs aloud. “Bess, come on,” She readjusts her slender body so her bottom half is supported by the couch. “Bears don’t just go mad crazy and hunt down humans. It was probably a dear.”

“It was _not_ a deer,” Bess says, crossing her arms over her chest. “It growled!”

“I’m sure deer can make some pretty menacing noises.”

“George, stop.”

“Okay, okay,” George sits erect again, facing Bess fully. “So it was a bear and it was chasing you through the woods but you managed to get away. Bears aren’t predatorily, really. I mean, they don’t stalk prey like mountain lions. We’ll be okay.”

“What if it was a mountain lion?”

“I thought you just said it was a bear?”

“I don’t know what it was!” Bess falls back onto the couch cushions, kneading her cheeks. Some of the color has returned to them, but she still feels eerily cold, a shiver she can’t shake off. “We heard this noise and ran. I didn’t _look_ at the thing, for fuck’s sake.”

“Calm down,” George pushes a sweaty strand of hair from Bess’ forehead. “Regardless, you’re safe here.”

“But what about the hunters?”

“Bess. They hunt _animals_ , not humans.” She pushes the cup of tea into Bess’ hands, encouraging her to take a sip. “It’s not like they’re going to come barging through the front door. They probably didn’t know this was private property.”

“I guess so.”

“Look, I know you’re scared. I’m sorry. It’s going to be fine. The power is back on, so take a hot shower or sit in front of the fire.”

“The fire?”

Bess looks up instinctively to the old fireplace in front of her. It sits as a centerpiece to the entire lodge, with a giant mantle that stretches high above the support beams hanging just shy of the second floor. The decorative stone complements the old woodwork, and the shelving is covered in old novelties and knickknacks. The film of dust is most prevalent, but the decorations are so high that it would take some sort of prop or machine to carry someone up there to clean them. They’ve probably been here for a while, maybe even since the lodge was first built.

The fire pops, covering a new log in a sheath of flame. George tilts her head to the side. “Actually… that’s weird. I don’t know who lit this. Ned and Deirdre went to bed some time ago.”

Her toes are finally starting to have to feel again, but Bess feels colder than ever. She knows _exactly_ who lit this fire, for her specifically, so she could cry and whine and complain about the night’s terrors and sip on tea. That Someone is probably in bed right now, wrapping a thin layer of sheets over his muscled body, trying to make a Queen bed less spacious without her in it to lay beside him. _I’m sorry_.

She swallows. “No idea.”

_I’m sorry too._

* * *

 Fifteen minutes later, Bess wakes up with a jump to Ned piling down the steps a mile a minute. He walks back and forth between the living room and the kitchen—shirtless, which is uncomfortable, to say the least—before nudging her on the shoulder.

She blinks in the dim light. “What, Ned?”

Beside her, George stirs and pushes a pillow on her face to block out the excess noise. The two of them had _just_ fallen asleep.

“I can’t find Deirdre.”

“And _how_ is that my concern, exactly?”

“Bess, seriously,” Ned says, crossing his arms. “I can’t find her anywhere.”

“Did you check Satan’s basement?” George says, her voice muffled underneath the pillow. Ned grabs it away hastily, tossing it across the room onto another armchair. “Whoa, buddy, what gives?”

“Can you just help me find her?” Ned protests, extending out a hand. Bess eyes him slowly, traveling the length of his skinny body. What, exactly, did Nancy like about him anyway? He’s a stick figure with a mop of curly brown hair and dimples as big as the craters on the moon. Still, she meets his eyes and finds herself feeling sorry for him. He’s perpetually stuck chasing after girls who disappear from time to time. The last one by choice, and this one—well, she’ll soon find out.

“All right, Nickerson,” Bess says, now on her feet. “Where did she go last?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” George says, digging her fingers in her eyes. She clears her throat suddenly, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Deirdre!”

The three of them are met with stale air, quickly filling the awkward gap between them. Ned lets his hand—still fully extended towards George—fall limp.

“Deirdre!” George screams again, and when she’s met with more silence, shrugs and sinks back down into the folds of the couch.

“That’s it?” Ned says with a frown. “ _That’s_ your grand gesture of assistance?”

“Yes,” George bites. “Be thankful I even helped at all.”

Ned claps his hands together, though his expression tells a different story. He bounds around the corner and disappears into the kitchen, ducking his head in and out of various spots in the hallways, before circling around back into the living room and sighing.

“No luck?”

He glances over his shoulder at Bess. “Does it _look_ like I had any luck?”

Before Bess can respond about the nature of the _men_ in this house and their apparent attitude problems, Joe appears in the doorway, his hair frizzy and tangled. He looks like he’s just rolled out of bed, and the thought makes Bess feel small.

“What is all the yelling about?” He says, scratching his jaw.

“Deirdre’s gone,” Ned says, letting out another long exhale. “I can’t find her.”

Joe looks around the lodge for a moment, though the darkness has been stained by an orange hue from the crackling fire. “Well she wasn’t outside,” He lifts his index finger as if to point. “I mean, we—I probably would’ve noticed her wandering outside by herself.”

“Maybe it’s better that she’s gone,” Bess says. “You can stop pretending that you’re over Nancy.”

It could’ve been from the glow of the fire, it could’ve been the coldness seeping through the cracks of the door, it could’ve been just a catch of the moonlight, a slight hormonal imbalance, pigment in Ned’s skin—but Bess swears she sees Ned’s brain liquefy and seep into the rough edges of the carpet. His face grows hot and red.

“I’m worried about her,” Ned sets his jaw. “That’s it.”

“Sure—”

Joe puts up a hand. “Bess, not now, okay? If you’re mad at someone, be mad at me, that’s fine. But don’t take it out on him.”

She opens her mouth to object, but no words come out. Joe’s half-apology from the fire seems to diminish within seconds. She’s just as angry as she was a half hour ago, just as unfortunate to be stuck in a lodge with him, just as disappointed to like him as much as she does.

Ned turns to Joe. “She wasn’t down here earlier? When you guys got back?”

George leans forward again, resting her elbows on the coffee table. “No. She wasn’t down here when I was making tea, either.”

“Should we wait for Nancy and Frank?” Joe says. “I mean, you know, to go looking for her?”

Ned makes it a point to stare at Bess again, his brown eyes now red in the light. “No,” he says, raising his eyebrows. It’s a gesture of retort, a provoke, a threat. “I’ll find her myself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's been so long since i last updated!! i swear i'm just barely keeping my head above water in school.


	9. search party

**Ned Nickerson**

* * *

 

 _Ned tastes the hairspray in Deirdre_ ’s thick, dark locks. He moves his hands over her bare skin of her thighs, trailing long fingers over her sun spots, forming constellations with his hands. She smells different than Nancy, but different is good. Different is what he needs right now, pulling the sheets over their half-naked bodies, feeling the tip of her feet press into his calves.

But he’s not there anymore. Instead, he tosses over the mattress on the wooden bedframe, as if it was conceivably possible that she could be hiding beneath it. He scours the dark corners of the closet, studies the tiles in the bathroom, peeks behind a few portraits hanging in the hallway, asks one of the roaming spiders if it has any good leads. He’s no good at this, and it’s obvious, but the others haven’t made any progress and the lump in his throat is growing tighter by the minute.

He finds the secret part of his brain left untouched and recounts the memory again, letting it dissolve into every niche in his mind.

Deirdre walks behind him, shutting the door to their bedroom in one swift motion, letting herself fall limp onto their large bed. He’s been used to sleeping in itchy twin-sized beds his entire life, letting his long legs stick over the sides, unable to stretch his back fully in the morning—so needless to say, this is a giant upgrade, even if it involves sharing it with someone who likes to roll over to his side in the middle of the night.

Ned has gotten used to sleeping with Deirdre. Not sexually, but literally, though he’s also grown accustomed to the differences between women and the way they like to have sex. Sleeping with Deirdre—literally, in this case—was a lot like sleeping with a fussy toddler, and if he ever surmounted the fear of having children, he imagined he’d have good practice. She kicked most of the sheets off herself during the night and rolled around a lot, often stretching her arms out to touch the sides of his face. She seemed comforted by his presence, the way he woke up briefly to move her closer to him, nuzzling her head into the crevices of his sharp collarbones. He figured it was uncomfortable, but that the comfort of his body was worth more to her than the comfort of her sleep.

Still, it was strange. Nancy was a light sleeper and didn’t like to be touched while she slept. Honestly, she didn’t like to be touched at _all_ , period, and was usually shoving Ned’s arm off her shoulders or coming up with another excuse as to why she didn’t want to hold his hand. It’s not that she wasn’t an affectionate girlfriend; she stretched on her toes to give him a kiss before her long flights and sank into his arms after third period English (back when they were just kids and life wasn’t as hard), but she acted as though it was a choice _she_ had to be making, not something she could deal with other people doing—so when Ned bent down to kiss her forehead, she’d smile and nod but he could tell she wasn’t into it. Into him, maybe.

Deirdre, on the other hand, needed to be touched all the time, a concept easy to understand but harder to deal with, especially when you’re used to interacting with someone who’d rather dig her hands into a sewage grate for a lost key—literally—than to be touched by a boyfriend.

“Come lie down,” Deirdre says, patting a spot next to her on the bed. She’s a porcelain doll.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Ned says, ripping off his t-shirt. It’s drenched in sweat and sticking to his armpits. “I feel like I should… take a shower.”

Deirdre’s face perks up. “Like… with me?”

That’s another thing about Deirdre that Ned wasn’t quite used to—she was absolutely fond of the idea of having sex whenever he wanted.

He glances down at his bare chest, slick with sweat. “Maybe I should take this one alone, okay?”

Her smile falls. “Whatever you say.”

He dips his head into the lukewarm water, letting little droplets run down his shoulders and to his ankles. With the generator working again, the water grows hot in cycles—hot, cold, hot, cold, hot cold—and makes the experience overall unenjoyable. But it’s five minutes he can gather himself before walking back into that room with Deirdre, so he takes it for all it’s worth.

Ned loses himself in the memory but finds himself standing somewhere on the second floor of the lodge, running a hand over the smooth wood of the railing. Glancing down, he can see the living room, now illuminated with bright lights, and wonders if a fall from this height would kill him. He doesn’t want to die—at least not right now—but a broken arm or a broken leg would hurt substantially less than the pounding in his chest.

“Deirdre!” He calls out, slamming a hand down on the wood. No answer, but Joe cranes his neck up from the kitchen and waves. “No sign of her?”

Ned furrows his brow. _Obviously_. “No. She’s not up here.”

“Does she have her phone on her?”

“I don’t—” Ned stares at the support beams as if they have all the answers. “I don’t think so, man. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

He’s suddenly back in the shower again, fumbling with the handles as the stream of water comes to a halt. He stands there, naked, for a second, leaning his head against the cool tile and taking uneven breaths. He should be happy here with Deirdre. _Should_.

He wraps a towel around his waist and walks awkwardly down the hallway to their bedroom, hoping to not—or maybe he is—run into anyone else. Deirdre is flipping through a renovation magazine, by the looks of it, but she lets it fall to the ground. “Was the water cold?”

“Yeah,” He admits, rummaging through his bag for a change of clothes. Things appear to be shifted around a bit, but he doesn’t have the energy to bring it up to her. “It was okay, though. I just needed to rinse off.”

“Come here,” she says, pushing out her lips.

He would’ve killed a man—maybe even two—to hear Nancy say that to him a year ago. But she’s not Nancy, she’s Deirdre. He sits on the edge of the bed and gets dressed, slipping on some underwear before Deirdre can open her mouth.

“I’m tired,” He says, leaning back and resting his head on the bed, inches away from one of her knees.

She shifts uncomfortably. “Why is that?”

The conversation is like eating stale chips. You know it’s going to taste like shit, but you eat anyway because you’re bored and sort of hungry.

“Just a long day, I guess,” Ned sighs. “A lot of walking, a lot of frustration, not enough fun.”

Her hands meet the tips of his shoulders. “Anything I can do to make it better?”

He closes his eyes, hoping she doesn’t see the annoyance on his face. “No, babe, it’s fine,” He stretches his arms over his head, running into her torso. She’s moved from earlier, now positioning directly overtop him. He flinches at the touch but quickly starts to talk as her eyes grow wide. “I’ll be fine after I get some sleep. It is sort of late.”

There’s no way in a million years she’ll buy such a lame excuse, but it’s worth a shot.

“It’s ten-thirty.”

Nope.

“Right, but we’ve been up since eight.”

“Nine,” She corrects, staring him down. “When did you become such a grandpa?”

Joe’s voice floats through the air, splitting open Ned’s mind and sending him back to the second floor of the lodge, peering down at his friend.

“Ned?”

“Sorry,” Ned shakes his head. “I was trying to remember what she did with her phone.”

“Any luck?”

“No.”

“Oh,” Joe says, gripping one of the couch cushions. “Well, we’ll keep looking, man. Nancy and Frank should be back any minute to help.”

Ned nods, heading down the stairway and into one of the many hallways on the first floor of the lodge. He passes the dining room, a couple of closets, the laundry room, and even the foyer, before stopping near the front door. It’s slightly ajar, but the breeze isn’t strong enough to push it fully open. Instinctively, he closes the door all the way.

Deirdre wouldn’t have gone outside, right? It’s almost as ridiculous to imagine her going down into the basement without Ned—or someone else—going with her. The panic boiling in his stomach returns. Why the fuck would she go outside alone?

“She said she was going to the bathroom,” He says aloud to himself. “The bathroom…”

He’s underneath the thick quilts now, Deirdre’s tiny body wiggling between his left arm. She rests her chin on his sternum and he can feel her short breaths against his skin. “This is nice,” She says softly, though he’s staring at the blank wall in front of him, unable to conjure up the same sort of content in his voice.

“Yeah.”

“Ned, honestly, what’s wrong?” She says, pushing herself up to look at him. She points her chin to remain eye-contact. He stares at her for a second, his eyes wandering down to the way her breasts peek out of the white lace of her bra. “This isn’t about _Nancy_ , is it? Because for god’s sake, Ned, if you’re not over her yet, then I can’t—”

She fusses with the sheets, finally yanking them off her body so she can attempt to scoot out of bed. She’s still talking, yelling, complaining, and the words are bleeding into Ned’s skull and giving him a headache. Before she can leap back onto the carpet, he grabs her shoulder and pulls her back up to his level, slamming his mouth down onto her lips hard and fast.

Deirdre responds just how he’d expected. She twists around to move on top of him, pushing her tongue in between the gates of his teeth. His hands move on auto-pilot, settling on her hips, stretching his fingers to grab at her wherever he can. She rakes one hand through his wet, messy hair and digs her nails into the back of his head like she can’t get enough of him, like she physically needs him to fill the space under her fingernails.

His lips are numb but he keeps going, moving his lips around hers with a fake passion that makes him want to upchuck. He and Nancy never made out like this. Christ, she never even got undressed in front of him. He should be applauding himself for this little victory, bathing in the fame of having a hot girl like Deirdre Shannon climbing all over him, high-fiving himself internally. _Should_.

She pulls back, sucking on her bottom lip. “I’ll be right back,” she says. “I just have to use the bathroom.”

He nods, giving her the best smile he can muster. That should do.

She smiles too. Good.

Back in the foyer now, Ned paces back and forth. “Bathroom… bathroom…”

“Bathroom is right over there, Ned,” George says behind him, leaning against one of the walls.

It startles him, hearing her voice, but he stops the pacing and turns to face her. “No, no, that’s where Deirdre said she was going.”

“Right,” she says. “Well, she’s not in the lodge. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Bess appears to George’s left, staying behind her cousin as if Ned is capable of lunging five feet in a surprise attack. Ned throws his arms up. “Well like, where the fuck could she have gone? It’s not possible that she could just disappear into thin air.”

“Maybe she left?” Bess offers, stepping out further into the hallway. “I mean, like, seriously, is it possible that she walked down the mountain to the cable cars and went back into town?”

“Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know,” She retreats behind George’s shoulders. “I’m just trying to exhaust all our options.”

Ned’s teeth hurt, as do his calves from all the walking up and down stairs. “I know you don’t give a fuck about her, Bess,” He breathes. “I get it, okay? I’m the only one who cares about her wellbeing.”

“That’s not—”

Ned’s voice grows louder over George’s, and she slowly closes her mouth to let him finish. “We graduated high-school like, what, a year ago? Two years ago? You’re both acting like she’s the worst person you’ve ever met, and yet you haven’t spoken to her in years. She’s different. If you cared enough to get to know her at all, you’d realize that.”

“She _tormented_ me, Ned, for years,” Bess spits. “Excuse me if I’m not concerned with the one person who never showed any concern for me.”

“She gave Nancy hell,” George says. “Or did you just black out during that time?”

He pushes past them both, stomping back into the living room. “I wish everyone would stop acting like I’m fucking obsessed with her,” He says, bile inching up the back of his throat. Joe is right where he left him, examining the dusty crevices of the fireplace. “We broke up. She’s free to do whatever the fuck she wants to do. So am I.”

Bess’ shrill voice chases after him. “That’s not the point, Ned,” She avoids Joe for some reason, choosing to stand to armchair closest to the kitchen door. “The point is that you’re dating a girl who has explicitly stated that she hates your ex-girlfriend. Multiple times. On numerous occasions. Frequently.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m not so fond of her myself.”

George laughs outright. “Yeah, sure.”

 “Okay, guys, seriously,” Joe says. “Nancy and Frank aren’t back, but I expect they’ll be here shortly. Deirdre is gone. We have to find her, obviously, or at least figure out where she went and if she’s safe. There’s no point in arguing. Let’s just get this done.”

It takes a minute for Ned to process the words coming from Joe’s mouth, and although his friend is surely defending him, the articulation of the sentences, the inflection of the syllables, the abruptness of the outburst—

God, he sounds so much like fucking Frank when he gets like this. _That_ ’s why it’s not comforting. Not even in the slightest. If Joe was hidden behind a curtain and Ned was to guess which brother it was spewing out orders, he would’ve guessed Frank. A million times Frank. Not his forgotten best friend.

Ned avoids Joe’s stare and turns on his heel to walk in the opposite direction. “I’m going into the basement,” he says. “It’s the only place we haven’t checked. You can stay up here if you want, I don’t care. I’m going to find her.”

“And what if it’s a prank?” George calls behind him.

“Then it’s a pretty damn good prank.”


	10. veracity

**Nancy Drew**

* * *

 

 _It’s a little less cold walking back_ because Frank blocks most of the wind with his massive frame, keeping up with her brisk pace as she rounds the various corners of the path. She’s thankful for a lot of little things about Frank: the way he only offers advice when she asks for it, the way he chews his food with his mouth closed, the way he folds his laundry—and, right now, the way his long legs carry him about a foot taller than her, keeping her shielded from the nip of the breeze.

“Anyway, yeah,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself. He shifts and staggers forward, losing his footing temporarily on a root jutting out of the snow. “Thane wasn’t ever found. The police searched all over for him, but they never found him or his body.”

“That’s sort of heavy stuff,” Frank says, furrowing his brow. He looks so much like his father. “I can’t believe the guy was so willing to let you vacation up here for a week knowing that his son disappeared here.”

She shrugs. “It happened like twenty-five years ago. I guess he just learned to move on.”

“So, what?” Frank says. “You’re trying to see if you can figure out what happened to his son?”

“I mean, sort of,” Heat returns to her face. “I don’t know. It was in all the papers because it was like the fourth disappearance of a kid Thane’s age in like a month.”

“The fourth disappearance?” Frank stops in his tracks, causing Nancy to also stop. She turns to face him, feeling the heat spread to her ears. “And the police have no idea what happened to them?”

It’s still dark out and the lights hanging above her offer little visibility, but she can still see the familiar features of Frank’s face. He’s aged quite a bit since the last time she saw him, but overall, his twenties are treating him well. He bulked up around their junior year of high-school and grew accustomed to his build quickly, filling out shirts that used to hang over his bones like napkins. Even though he’s taller and wider and muscular, she can see the lines on his forehead and his faint, though indistinguishable, smile lines. He’d always hated them—individually, separately—but Nancy somehow found something endearing about them.

“No,” she admits. “The cases went cold.”

She’d spent too many hours remembering the way his face looked ever since he left River Heights with Joe. Studying old photos just became second nature, like if she didn’t look at them every day his face would melt right off the paper or he would disappear completely, almost as if he never existed to begin with. They kept in contact over the years, sure, but it was always over the phone. She missed watching his facial expression shift between one another or the way his smile made his ears move. You can’t see those things over a phone call. You just can’t.

“Well,” he says, falling into step beside her again. “What do we know?”

“Well, there was a guy staying up here in the old sanatorium on the east side of the lodge. Apparently, it’s sort of a walk to get there, but this guy was interested in the history and wanted to renovate it, or something.”

“So naturally he was the police’s first suspect.”

“Naturally.”

Frank’s eyebrows creep up to meet his hairline. “And… wait, let me guess. That’s our little friend back in the maintenance shed. The guy they couldn’t find? On the wanted poster?”

“You’re smart,” She smiles, watching him roll his eyes. The lodge comes into focus, a stark contrast to the white snow, and they take the stairs leading up to the kitchen. “I mean, I don’t know for sure. But I think?”

“Makes sense,” Frank says. “I mean, he’s just randomly up here during the same time as the disappearances, renovating some creepy sanatorium? If I was a cop—”

“You sort of _are_ a cop, Frank.”

He shoots her a glare, stopping at the top of the stairs. “Listen here, _detective_ , I’m a _special agent_ , not a cop.” He chides, one hand positioned on the doorknob. The lines on his forehead grow more apparent. “But my point still stands. If I was assigned the case, he’d be the first to get locked up.”

“Or he’s being framed.”

“You always think someone is being framed, Nancy.”

She lets her mouth hang open, and his laugh spills into the winter air. “I am not!” She gestures with her hands, pointing to herself. “I’m just more inclined to believe that not all people are evil.”

She can feel his breath on her cheeks as he gazes down at her, mouth still twisted in a lingering smile. “You live in a fantasy land,” He laughs. “Mind taking me with you? I think I can rent a room at the Marriott.”

The space between them is depleting, and she can feel her heart jump to her throat. “The Marriott? This is a fantasy land, Frank. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t choose to say at the Ritz or something.”

He shrugs and rolls his brown eyes once more. “I’m not about all that glitter.”

“It’s fantasy land,” Nancy repeats. “You don’t think there’s glitter in fantasy land?”

Suddenly, she’s so close she can see the budding hairs on his jaw. How did they get so off topic so quickly? His bare hand rests on the doorknob, knuckles growing white from the cold.

“Not in my fantasy land,” He’s saying. “Glitter is too messy.”

“So am I,” She says, her voice dropping another decibel. She’s not even sure he can hear her at this point with the wind ravishing her red hair.

He looks like he’s about to object, raising one of his thick eyebrows, and she’s trying to figure out what to say next. He looks like he’s about to kiss her, and she’s having a hard time deciding whether she’d be okay with that. The wind shifts directions once again. She can smell cinnamon and vanilla and sweat. Frank. She can smell _him_ , the him underneath all the layers of his clothes, the layers of his skin, the layers of muscle.

She’ll be okay if he kisses her right now. Maybe. Probably.

The door flies open from the other side, and Frank buckles forward at the motion, almost toppling headfirst into the kitchen. He catches himself on one of the counters.

“The fuck are you two doing out here?” Joe says, still gripping the side of the door.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Frank mumbles under his breath, straightening his knees and standing fully erect. “Could you be a little less dramatic, Joe? For once?”

“I thought you and Bess—” Nancy begins, but Joe rolls her eyes and makes her words die in the back of her throat. “What happened?”

Joe is about to answer her, but then behind him, a dark figure appears in the doorway connecting the kitchen to the rest of the lodge. Joe barely moves, his fingers still wrapped around the wooden door as Frank leans against the stove.

Ned twitches irritably, hands fixed at his sides, tawny brown hair splayed out in every direction. His eyes are bloodshot, and even in the moonlight, Nancy notices the dark circles ringing his eyes.

“What _happened_?” He repeats.

“Ned, what—”

“Deirdre is gone.”

Nancy’s eyes flick from Ned to Joe, trying to discern whether this is some elaborate practical joke. But instead of bursting out in a hysterical laughing fit, Joe closes the door and folds his arms over his chest.

“Gone?” Nancy says.

“Gone how?” Frank offers, but Joe holds up a hand and silences him.

“We really don’t have time to ask a lot of questions,” Joe says, avoiding Frank’s glare. Instead, he speaks to Nancy as if she’s the only one in the room. “We’ve looked all over for her. She’s not here.”

Nancy swallows hard. “Um—I don’t—”

She’s surprised to see George peek her head in from the living room. “I heard the voicemails, Nan. In the dining room. About Thane.”

It’s like some sort of haunted house. Bess pops out behind Joe, keeping a few feet between them. “Ned told us about that newspaper you found in the basement and how weird you were acting,” She says softly. “You need to tell us what’s going on.”

Bess’ voice fades into oblivion, and Nancy finds herself standing in the kitchen alone. The hem of her jeans has caught fire and instead of panicking, she relishes in the heat and watches the flame lick her ankles. The fire is graceful; it burns and destroys the denim but makes intricate patterns in its destruction, leaving her with charred clothing but minimal pain. In fact, she can’t feel the fire at all.

It works its way up to her thighs, melting her clothing like butter in an oven. Still, her skin is left untouched, unscathed, without burn marks to symbolize the fire’s rapid succession to her torso, eating away at the knitting of her sweater. She watches it carefully, entranced in the colors, unable to move her body. The lodge sits asleep around her. There are no lights, no people, no confusion, no mystery to rattle her thoughts and distract her from this moment.

Instead, she thinks about fire. She thinks about the way its beauty is so hypnotizing in such a dangerous way. Pyromaniacs, so it seems, almost want to bathe in the pain it causes. Maybe it’s because they’re addicted to the fire's power, or the way the heat makes any sort of resentment peel off your skin like a bad sunburn. Maybe they’re attached to fire’s lack of commitment; it never stays in one place long enough—it’s always moving, shifting, burning, destroying.

Or maybe it’s the idea of pain—the idea that something so beautiful could inflict so much sorrow in one sweeping motion, that the elements created something so destructive and beautiful. It’s hard to resist.

 _She’s_ hard to resist.

“Nancy, will you please tell us what the fuck is going on?”

The fire is strangling her neck, and she’s succumbing to the flaming waters. It’s a giant beast. It would be easier to disappear than explain.

This isn’t supposed to happen. None of this is supposed to happen. She just wanted them to understand. She just wanted them to feel the adrenaline in their veins, the electricity in their souls, the fire burning a hole in her heart. She wanted them to understand why she’d spent so many nights mulling over case files, investigating, driving herself into uncertain madness trying to figure out the unknown.

And now the only thing left to understand is that Deirdre would be dead before dawn if they didn’t figure this thing out.

She can feel embers tickling the back of her throat as she talks, and everyone turns their attention to her. To watch the fire take her alive. “I’m—I’m so sorry, I just—” Even her tears burn the soft patches of her skin. She’s convinced they’ll be brand marks by the time she’s finished. “Let me explain.”

She’s not surprised when Ned’s face softens at the sight of her crying, or when Frank takes a preemptive step toward her.

“Tell me what happened,” Ned says, but he doesn’t reach out and bring her near like he used to—no, those days are gone. Her insides feel like charcoal, raw and spitting flames that won’t catch without kindling. Is this how a fire feels when it’s burned for too long?

She’s talking, but her voice is muffled. She can’t hear the words spewing from her scratchy throat. She’s staring at Joe, Frank, Bess, George, Ned—god, _Ned_ —as she works through every last detail that she can remember. She’d been researching this place for years. She begged Mr. Weinstock for weeks to let her see the place, to take a few friends and build… oh, what did she tell him? “New and lasting memories”.

Bullshit. All of it. Every single letter in every single word in every single sentence.

And really, she’s not expecting anyone to be particularly shocked. When her little speech ends, Bess and George exchange a familiar look between the two of them, and George treats to the dining room to find some extra flashlights. The others waver behind, some of them saying some… unhelpful things, others drifting off speechless, until it’s just her and Ned staring blankly at one another.

She finds the handle of one of the cabinets and holds it to keep herself upright. No matter what he says, she can’t meet his gaze.

“You brought us here because of a mystery,” he says slowly, like he’s physically digesting the words. “A mystery.”

“Ned, I—”

“I don’t want to know,” He interrupts, staring at the crack in the foundation behind her. “I just want to find Deirdre. That’s it.”

Nancy’s mouth is dry. “Okay,” she says. “We’ll find her.”

From her position in the kitchen, she can see a trail of blonde hair behind the trim of the door. Ned doesn’t respond. He nods, drawing back toward the refrigerator.

 “What should we do?” Bess says. She and George appear in the doorway again, closely followed by Frank and Joe.

Nancy squints, conjuring up an acceptable plan. “There’s an emergency radio tower just south of the lodge. I think we passed the trail when we were coming up here earlier. Someone should go down there and see if they can radio for some help.”

George grabs her coat, flung over the side of the couch. “I’ll do it.”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Nancy says. “Ned, will you—”

“Yeah,” He sniffs, turning on his heel. “I’ll go. Maybe she’s outside somewhere.”

Nancy nods. “All right, Bess, I think you should stay here in the lodge in case, for whatever reason, Deirdre circles back and ends up here again.”

Bess looks faint, but she nods anyway. “Okay.”

Everyone glances at one another, and Nancy, fed up with the silence, begins talking again. “Frank, Joe and I will go search the grounds, I guess. There’s—there’s a small hut bordering the ski slopes. Maybe she’s over there.”

Frank moves instinctively, rummaging through the kitchen for any relevant supplies. Joe, on the other hand, doesn’t move. “I think I should stay here,” he says, unable to look at Bess. “Bess doesn’t have a phone, and—and I don’t really feel right leaving her here by herself.”

Ned already has his shoes on. “That’s fine, we’ll all go in pairs,” He pats his back pocket. “I have my phone. Call if you need us.”

“Wait, George,” Nancy calls, flying over to a weird pantry-shaped room beyond a paneled door. She throws open a little glass box, stuffing some keys into her pocket. When she returns to their huddle, she’s wielding a bright red pistol. “It’s the only flare gun we have. If no one answers on the radio, shoot this from the tower. Someone in town has to see it.”

George’s hazel eyes show fear, but she purses her lips and takes the gun from Nancy’s hand. “All right.”

Before everyone parts ways, Nancy flings around and clutches the fabric on George’s thick winter coat, pulling her backward. Ned stops, turning only his head over his shoulder. Nancy swallows hard again. Her throat burns. “Please be safe,” she says, smacking her lips together. “I’m—please be safe.”

George offers her a small smile and turns to leave again, joining Ned in the entranceway. He stays quiet.

* * *

 

It’s the second time Nancy finds herself trudging through snow next to Frank, the first being only a half hour ago, and the latter being right now, wiping snot off her face. She’s done nothing but cry for the past twenty minutes and he’s let her, only intervening to assist her across some treacherous terrain—a fallen tree, slick ice, a series of boulders. The temperature has dropped significantly in the past hour, falling a little above freezing. Nancy’s fingers have grown numb even if they remain stuffed in her jacket pockets. She almost wishes she’d get hypothermia and lose all of them—less of a chance she’ll ever meddle with something again.

After a moment, Frank clears his throat. “I’m sorry.”

She barely reacts. “You’re sorry? For what?”

“I’m sorry for the things that were said back there,” he says, holding back a series of twigs so Nancy can duck through the opening. “Regardless of what happened, they shouldn’t be acting like this is your fault.”

“It _is_ my fault,” she says. “I brought all of them here in false pretenses. I brought _you_ here on false pretenses.”

“I wouldn’t say all that,” He pulls down the bottom of his hat, concealing his ears from the cold. “You just omitted some important details. That’s not the same as lying.”

“I omitted some important details that may or may not have gotten someone killed.”

She moves to the left to allow him to pass by, but he grabs her elbow and makes her stop. She can’t turn to face him, but it doesn’t seem to bother him much. “You don’t know that,” he says. “It’s only been a couple of hours. We’ll find her. You’ll see.”

She yanks her elbow free from his grip. “I hope.”

 


	11. itsy bitsy spider

**George Fayne**

* * *

_There is a time and a place for all things_ , but George knows it’s not the time to smoke a cigarette, especially in front of Ned in the climax of his panic. Still, she lights up anyway. It’s her third cig of the day and by the time this day is officially over she’ll probably have smoked the entire pack and coughed up half a lung. If left up to her, she’d be in bed right now, her belly swollen with alcohol and her nose pressed up against the insides of those cheesy true crime novels.

What? It’s not like she _actually_ went out and tried to solve them.

Ned scrunches up the nose at the smell. It’s better than him trying to force conversation, though, so she hardly minds. She flicks her cig with one finger, exposed from the confines of her gloves, and draws it near her mouth again.

“Didn’t know you were much of a smoker,” Ned bites, suddenly, drawing a scarf up to his nose. She rolls her eyes. He’s being melodramatic because he can get away with it right now, because the whole _missing girlfriend_ thing, even though George is about a foot away from him and the smoke is traveling with the wind.

“You don’t know much about me,” she says. “Let’s leave it at that.”

“I thought you were a fitness… person,” He blinks, the wind making his eyes water. “Doesn’t this like negate all of that?” He nods down to her cigarette.

George shoots him a glare. “You want to talk about not _knowing_ someone, Nickerson? Then let’s talk about your little performance back there.”

He stiffens. _Check._

“It wasn’t a performance,” he says. “It’s just, you know, Nancy’s love for a mystery has once again come before my best interest.”

“It’s not like she did any of this on purpose,” George says, taking a long drag. She tosses the cig into a mound of white, watching it disappear in the snow. “No need to be a total dick about it when you don’t know all the facts. Deirdre could just be doing this for attention.” _Check_.

“I think we’re past that point.”

“Are we, now?”

“Yes, we are,” Ned huffs, cracking his knuckles one by one. If it’s supposed to read as a threat, it’s a lame attempt. It’s like when the nerdiest kid in school finally decides he’s tired of being picked on. Admirable, sure, but no one _really_ takes it seriously. “I’m _allowed_ to get angry at her, you know. I have feelings too.”

“And, what, you don’t think she’ll be angry when she finds out you’ve been fucking Deirdre for over a year?” _Checkmate_.

He stops for emphasis, but she keeps on going, sidestepping a few lose branches. She’s half convinced he’s stopped walking altogether until he hears him bumbling down the path after her, nearly wiping out on some rocks. “How did—”

“I don’t think you want to know,” George says, flashing her eyes. “Look, I don’t care what or who the fuck you do in your free time, okay? So lighten up. I get that you’re upset because Deirdre is gone or whatever, but it took a _lot_ for Nancy to invite the two of you up here. It’s not easy vacationing with an ex. I’m sure you, of all people, understand that.”

“I do.”

“Good. Let’s focus on finding Deirdre, then. That’s what’s important right now.”

She hasn’t talked that much all day, and the thought of getting into a heated argument with Ned Nickerson warrants another cigarette. She pulls her lighter from her pocket, watching the flame dance by her fingers.

And then Ned starts talking again.

“I still have feelings for her,” he blurts out. “I mean—Nancy. I still have feelings for Nancy.”

When Ned gets uneasy, his voice strains in such a way that it reminds George of a squeak toy, the same one her dog pulls under the couch every night. It’s irritating and unmistakable; if he fell off the mountain, everyone would be able to hear him screaming and go, _Yeah, that’s Ned all right_.

George rolls her eyes. “Of course you do, Sherlock. That’s obvious.”

“It is?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“I like Deirdre,” he says. It sounds like he’s working out a math problem aloud, trying to convince himself he’s got the right answer even though none of the multiple-choice options correspond with the number he calculated. “She’s great, and I know she really likes me and enjoys hanging out with me, which is a first.”

If Ned was a politician, he’d win the sympathy vote. George puffs her cigarette again, trying to focus on the warmth expanding in her mouth than Ned’s shameful rambling. Who the fuck was he talking to, anyway? Had she ever given him the impression that she cared about any of this shit? No.

She says nothing, puffing a cloud of smoke.

But he’s not finished, that much is obvious.

“I just don’t understand why I’m still in love with her,” Ned rambles.

“Who?” George runs her tongue around her mouth and spits into the snow. “Deirdre or Nancy? If you’re going to spill your guts out to me, at least clarify who you’re talking about.”

“Nancy. I’m in love with Nancy,” he says, his arm brushing up against hers. She jerks her free arm away from him, transferring the cigarette to the one farthest away from him. Her feet stick to the snow. “And I just, I don’t know, I thought—”

“Why’d you come?” George interrupts, smacking into him as she changes directions. She cuts down a little slope in the mountain, rounding down to her right and ending up on a little broken path they’d sidestepped earlier.

“What?”

“Why’d you come if you still have feelings for her?”

“I thought—”

She taps her cigarette and laughs outright. “Oh God, Ned, please don’t tell me you thought bringing Deirdre up here would make her nervous,” She licks her lips. “Please, tell me that’s not why you came.”

He stiffens, shoving his hands deeper into his jean pockets. “No, that’s not why I came up here,” he says. “If you let me finish a fucking sentence, maybe I could explain.”

She cares little for the explanation, but he looks haggard and stressed, like he hasn’t slept in a week. “Explain away.”

Ned sucks in his cheeks. “I thought I was ready,” he says. “I thought things would be different. Deirdre and I have been spending so much time together, and—and I thought I’d be able to handle it.”

Sensitivity is not her forte. “Wrong.”

“Yes, I was wrong,” he bites. “Obviously.”

The farther they walk down the path the more George can hear the rushing of the river, winding down the mountain to their immediate right. If she missteps, she could tumble down into the icy fingers of the water. She moves away from the cliff, keeping to the left of the path where the trees poke out of the earth like tiny taggers, covered in a sheet of white. She’d rather die from an avalanche.

But she definitely doesn’t want to die next to Ned Nickerson, all mopey and depressed and spewing his feelings like an open tap.  She quickens her pace, dropping the butt of her cigarette into another mound of snow. After a moment of—thankfully quiet—walking, the two of them round another steep bend. On the other side, she can see the wired frame of the radio tower, extending far into the murky night sky. A faint red light at the top blinks through the clouds. George nods in that direction.

“This way. Careful.”

She treads carefully on the side of the ridge, watching her footing, one hand clamped down on the inside of her jacket to avoid dropping the flare gun into the water below. As she passes over the river, she thinks about Bess’ unbelievable story about the bear that chased her and Joe to the maintenance shed, and a feeling worse than the cold travels the length of the body. But no, that’s ridiculous—George knows better than anyone that bears only attack if they’re provoked. And it’s _winter_. Didn’t Bess know bears hibernate?

She finds herself checking Ned’s progress over the embankment, only turning away when he proves he’s safely across. She slips her gloves back on and taps her back pocket, feeling the familiar outline of her pack of Newports, and then continues on, pushing up a little hill before the radio tower wavers above her in the wind.

“So we have to go up there?” Ned asks as they approach the base. She doesn’t answer, instead swinging both hands up to grab the remnants of a ladder.

“Yep,” George groans, wiggling herself up to the next platform. Thankfully, the ladder connecting the higher levels are all intact.

Waiting for Ned would take five thousand light-years, so she goes up ahead by herself, clinging to the cold rungs of the tower ladder to keep herself steady. She passes through two, three, four platforms before she’s teetering on the highest level, clutching the railing to avoid spilling over the edge. From here, she can see the lodge in the distance, still lit with bright lights. To her right, the river flows angrily beside the tower, pushing passed boulders and soggy earth. Even though she’s well above its claws, the sight of the water sends a chill down her spine. Fuck.

It becomes apparent that Ned is not the biggest fan of heights. He grips the railing ten times harder than George as the tower sways slightly in the breeze, and she walks off to investigate the door bolted to the only room in sight. She fights with the handle, pushing and pulling with all her might, but the door doesn’t budge.

“It’s… locked?” She says with a frown. The words stain her mouth. Wasn’t that Nancy’s signature phrase?

Ned rolls his eyes. Yep.

She moves back from the door and kicks at the handle again but it doesn’t budge, and after touching it with a naked hand, she surmises it is frozen shut. The keyhole is crystallized around the edges and frost seems to coat the entire side of the wall.

Great. Just fucking peachy. Stuck up on a rickety fucking tower above a fucking freezing river with fucking Ned Nickerson. Great vacation.

“I’m going to have to break this window,” she calls to Ned, who’s still hanging on for dear life. She peers in through the condensation and then draws back, flexing out her leg in one swift motion.

The glass sounds like nails on a chalkboard and Ned whines behind her. She uses the momentum of the wind and swings her leg out again, this time coming in contact with the larger break in the window, and the glass gives free, shattering into a thousand little pieces all over the room. She breaks off a few of the loose pieces with her fingers, slicing her index finger open on one of the shards.

“Fuck,” she says, licking the blood. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

“What?” Ned says, craning his head to see the damage.

“Nothing. I’m going in.”

Once it looks like all the glass is freed from the lower-half of the window sill, George pushes herself up by her forearms and sits on the edge, almost straddling the wood. She swings one leg over and then the other, carefully sliding down through the tiny opening to avoid cutting herself again. Inside, the room is devoid of human life besides some shredded paper lining the crusty floors. It’s somehow colder in here than it is outside, and George wraps her arms around herself to keep warm.

“See anything?” Ned calls.

“Yeah,” George says, eyes flicking to a black box resting atop a desk in the corner. There are parts lying on the ground toward the back of the room. “I can see the radio. Give me sec.”

She fiddles with the central radio unit, fumbling around the back of it with cold fingers until they hit a switch—or a button of some kind. Pressing down, a little red light blinks on the front console. Now to find the microphone.

It’s near the back-leg of the desk, which George can now see is bolted to the side of the wall to avoid sliding around in the wind. When she stands upright and connects the chord to the radio, she notices a giant chunk of wiring is missing from the microphone stand.

In that same moment, she realizes that she has absolutely _no_ fucking idea how to use one of these. Maybe Ned would’ve been better suited to figure this one out—he’s the engineer, anyway. But he’s still outside gripping the edge of the railing, trying to comfort himself out of a panic attack, and there’s no time for idle discourse. So she sits down and screws with the parts a bit until a vibrant static fills up the whole room.

“Ned!” she says, grinning. “Ned, I got it to work!”

“Tell them we need help!”

And just like that, the moment’s gone.

She presses against the base of the microphone and leans in, hot breath sticky on the outside of the cushioned speaker. “Hello? This is George Fayne. Is anyone there? Hello?”

She releases the button and the radio explodes with static again.

“Hello? Hello?”

More static, but this time she can hear a faint voice on the other end. “Hello? Is someone there? Over.”

“Yes, hello!”

It’s a man talking, though most of his sentences are choppy and indistinguishable. “Speak up, ma’am—”

It feels like she’s screaming. “My name is George Fayne,” she swallows hard. “My friends and I are staying in ski lodge on Wolverine Ridge. We need help immediately.”

It occurs to her that it’s a creepy thing to name a place that’s supposed to be full of fun and frolic, but now is not the time.

“What’s he saying, George?”

“Weinstock’s old place?” The man says, his words almost dissolving completely into the white noise.

 _Weinstock_. Sounds right. “Yes, near the sanatorium. Please, you have to help us. One of our friends has gone missing.”

She can almost _hear_ the hesitance in his voice. “We can send someone up to you first thing tomorrow. For now, I’ll need you to—”

“Did he just say _tomorrow_?” Ned says, peeking his head through the opening. When he managed to get the courage to wobble over, George isn’t sure.

“Ned, shut the fuck up for _one_ , measly goddamn second so I can hear him, for god’s sake,” George bites, wheeling around to the microphone again. “Sir, please, I know it’s late, but she’s missing and we need to find her immediately.”

 _Immediately_? George almost rolls her eyes at herself.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but with this weather, we won’t be able to get a truck up there until tomorrow morning. Go back to the lodge and stay put.”

“Tell him that’s fucking bullshit,” Ned breathes behind her.

“We don’t even know if she’s alive,” George says, feeling her throat tighten. “Please.”

“Ma’am, like I said, I put in a word with a deputy and someone will be with you in the morning. We won’t be able to find her in this darkness either,” the voice crackles. “You’d best go back to the lodge and stay put.”

As if on cue, the voice fizzles out back to more static, which is arguably better than the dead silence settling between George and her avid comrade, who hangs over the window opening with big, worrisome eyes.

George swings her leg around suddenly, connecting with one of the rusted lockers lining the wall closest to the river. The tower sways from the movement and then stills, one of the metal doors falling flat on the door with a loud _clang_.

“Maybe we should…” Ned says with a heavy sigh, his voice falling below the sound of the radio. “Maybe we should get on the lift and go down to town. Get the police ourselves.”

“We don’t even know if that fucking thing works anymore,” George spits, putting one hand on her back pocket where her Newport’s rest untouched. _Fuck_ , she needs a cigarette. Especially now. “Besides, this weather will kill us before we even get down.”

Before Ned can open his mouth, George rips a cigarette from its pack and shoves it into her mouth, patting her jacket for her lighter. How many did that make today? Four? Five? She lost count a while ago, but it’s not like it matters. She’s missing an _acquaintance_ of some sort, and everyone around her is slowly unraveling at the seams. She could smoke a whole pack and it still wouldn’t be enough to calm her nerves, or the nerves of anyone else, for that matter.

“Jesus Christ,” Ned says, reaching up to rub his eyes with his gloveless hands, colored pink from the cold.

George takes one long drag from her cigarette and then topples over onto the ground as the tower comes alive beneath her. She hears three distinct _snaps_ in the distance and she grips the side of the desk to keep herself from flying up over the opening.

“What the—what the fuck—!”

The tower roars beneath the two of them and jerks to the right, spilling George’s body to the wall closest to her. The legs of the desk dig into her ribcage, but she musters the strength to pull herself closer to the window’s opening. There’s no use in trying to kick the frozen door down; she’s almost horizontal to it now as the tower leans forward again in the wind.

“Ned!” she screams, her knuckles growing white.

“George, what the—what the _fuck_ is happening—!”

“Help me through!”

She can see the tips of Ned’s tawny curls peeking through the windowsill. He’s sitting on the platform as it tosses them about, but once hearing her voice, he twists around and shoves an arm in her direction. They are separated by only a foot, but George pushes from her position on the ground and snags his sweaty hands before the tower jerks again, ravished by the wind.

He pulls her up and over the window opening and she scrambles the rest of the way through, landing down onto the shaky platform with her hair awry and blood sneaking through the wound on her finger. She wipes it hastily on the back of her jeans, unable to process what the _fuck_ is going on.

“The hitching wires—” Ned points to the bank, some fifty feet in front of them, which is void of any sort of anchoring mechanism. Without the stability of the ropes, the tower is lifeless. It’ll topple down in a matter of seconds and take them down with them.

The platform continues to sway and George hears the metal ladders connecting them to the ground start to break apart, one by one, until it’s evident that the two of them are on a very life-size Jenga tower at the mercy of the weather.

“Jesus _Christ_ —” George says, the sound of the tower drowning out her words. Suddenly, it begins to buckle, collapsing on itself and sending George flying towards the metal railway. Behind her, Ned yells something inaudible, gripping a metal pole in the center of the platform to keep himself upright.

But then the tower jerks itself toward the embankment, resting almost perpendicular to itself as it snaps in half, sending metal shards out in every direction. The next thing she knows, her forehead is bleeding, and then her hand slips from the railing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so it's been a hot second since i've posted, but here's the next installment, as promised. (:


	12. green

**Joe Hardy**

* * *

 

 _Too much time has passed for Joe to_ rightfully consider this a joke. If it is, it’s a pretty sick one, and even though he considers himself to be a modest playwright of his own dastardly plans, even he would never fake his own disappearance for this long. He’d done some amateur stunts like this before, but nothing that seriously amounted to anything besides an annoyance for his older brother. This is hardcore.

By the time everyone shuffled out to do their respected tasks as assigned by their fearless leader, Joe realizes he hasn’t actually talked to Bess since her little outburst in the woods. The two of them stand in the living room, separated by about three feet of awkward space.

He clears his throat as her eyes flick to his face, and his cheeks tint with color. He’s standing close enough to the crackling fire to blame it on the dancing flames—but no, she’s staring at him, like _really_ staring at him, so the gig is up. “I’m going in the basement,” he says quietly. “That’s the only place we haven’t looked yet.”

She pushes a strand of golden hair from her face. “I know that,” she deadpans.

The silence is suffocating to say the least, so he just nods and circles back around to the rickety staircase, but the darkness outside is no consolation to just how dark it is down _there_ , in this weirdly creepy basement, where seemingly all bad things take place. Obviously.

He takes the stairs by two, thinking about the walls closing in around him. Nothing good ever comes from a basement. You don’t celebrate anything fun down there, at least. It’s just someplace to store leftover furniture from weird relatives and Christmas decorations. Besides, where do most people meet their unseemly death? The basement. Always the damn basement.

 Then he hears a voice from the top of the stairs. “Wait,” Bess says. “I’m coming with you. Don’t leave me up here.”

He doesn’t like how the whine of her voice makes him feel. _Don’t leave me up here_. Like it was at all purposeful. He’d told her a minute ago he was going downstairs; did it sound like such an abandonment? He isn’t sure.

She follows him down the stairs, eventually landing on the same step as him. She rests about a foot shorter than his ears and peers up at him, her eyes clouded over by the surrounding dust and filth.

“Let’s go.” He leads—because that’s what you’re _supposed_ to do, right?—and takes her around the winding corner until they’re in a large room with boxes stacked to the ceiling.

“What _is_ this place?” Bess says, walking in tandem. “I mean, how much stuff can one person have?”

“Clothes, looks like,” Joe says, peeling a cold flannel off the ground and placing it in an open box to his left. “I don’t know why you’d store it here, though. You’re right. There’s like a thousand bedrooms in this place.”

They keep walking, eventually ending up in a smaller room with a big, metal box with the door swinging open. “Breaker,” Bess says, pointing one of her tiny fingers toward the wall. “Nancy was down here with Ned earlier.”

“Deirdre came down after that looking for him,” Joe says, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans. This place makes him feel dirty. And not in the good way.

“Right, but she came back up later with Ned and the two of them went to bed.”

He doesn’t say anything because she’s right, and going over these facts again are just going to make the whole thing more confusing. Somehow, Deirdre got out of her bed and disappeared on a Seemingly Average night in a Rather Spooky lodge in the middle of the Not So Nice forest and no one seems to know what the hell happened to her.

“Let’s go in here,” he says, nodding toward another grime-covered room with more boxes. He has to duck through the doorway to enter, and when he’s standing in the middle, he realizes there’s nothing any more or less remarkable about this room than any of the other ones in the basement. Except—

“Do you see that?” Bess says as if on cue, blue eyes darting toward some faint scrape marks on the cement floor.

Joe nods. “Yeah, hold the flashlight.”

Against the wall adjacent to the doorway sits a large, awkward-looking bookshelf devoid of any books. Half of the shelves are chipped and broken. But what’s more curious is the faint lines running from one side of the wall to another, roughly the same width apart as the legs of the bookshelf, as if it had been moved more than once back and forth from its spot. When Joe draws near, he can feel the tug of a draft.

“I think there’s something behind this,” he says. “Hold the light steady so I can try to move it.”

She stands wavering in the doorway, keeping both hands locked firmly on the grip of the flashlight as Joe moves around the bookshelf, trying to lift it at the best angle. He eventually settles on the right end and slides his hand under the top shelf to get some leverage, eventually tipping it back to rest on only one set of legs. He begins to move it back slowly, keeping on hand on the front to keep himself steady. When he thinks he’s gone as far as he can go, he tips the bookshelf back upright and stands back to see what it’s revealed.

He’s not sure what the hell he expected, but he’s not expecting that. There’s a large gaping hole in the wall that extends more darkness into the dimly lit room. He can’t see beyond the perimeter of the cracked foundation and he can’t _hear_ anything, either, which is alarming, especially if it’s like a portal to the underworld or something like that. Shouldn’t he be able to hear Satan’s dogs? What are they called? Hellhounds? That’s beside the point.

Basements, man. What the fuck?

He takes a step forward towards the passage but Bess’ hand comes flying down on his wrist, making him stagger back to where she’s standing, still gripping the flashlight. “Absolutely not,” she says. “We are _not_ going in there.”

Joe resists the urge to smile. Middle of crisis or not, Bess always had a way of looking so damn irresistible when she got mad. It made it even better that she was always getting mad at _him_. Anger is better than ambivalence any day. She _feels_ a certain way about him, and that’s enough. His lips twitch, but he manages to keep his face neutral.

“You don’t have to go anywhere,” he says, almost embarrassed at how obvious he sounds. “I’m going to go, though. Just stay here and wait for the others.”

“Stay here?” she blinks. “I’m not going to stay here while you trudge down this Black Hole of Death.”

Black Hole of Death. Yeah, she gets it.

“Then come with me,” Joe says, shoving his hands into his pockets. He makes a point not to take the flashlight from her—not yet. She looks at him like all girls do whenever he says stuff like that, stuff like _come here_ or _why not_ or _you don’t mean that_ , stuff that’s automatically categorized as the Stuff only guys say when they want something more out of the situation than they’re getting. But in this case, he’s being honest. There’s just more darkness beyond that tiny passageway, and having someone with him would make him more comfortable, even if it meant that they died a slow, painful death together after this was all over. Misery loves company, and he loves—

“Fine,” she’s saying, shoving the flashlight into his gut. “But I swear to god, Joe, if this gets me killed, you owe me _so_ much shit in heaven.”

Now seems like a good time. “You think there’s really a heaven?”

She stops suddenly, placing both hands on her hips. “You’re about to lead me into the Black Hole of Death and you think it’s a good time to question my beliefs about the afterlife?”

He shrugs, feeling the other side of the broken wall with his foot. There’s solid ground, so he takes the flashlight from her and ducks through the passage, careful not to smack his head on the ceiling. He glances around preemptively with the light, daring to look in all corners, but the passage is mostly a long, narrow hallway with thick, rusted drainage pipes running as far as he can see, which is like three feet in front of him, so he doesn’t feel any better.

“Anything?” Bess says.

“No hellhounds.”

“What?”

“Just follow me,” he says, helping her over some of the broken foundation. She loses her footing on some of the pipes around the wall, but he scoops her up in record time and places her back down on the flatter part of the cement, away from the outline of the doorway back to the basement. “Okay,” he huffs, immediately aware of how close they are. “Let’s… keep going, I guess.”

“Why would Deirdre come down here?” she says as they begin to walk, keeping on hand on the thicker pipe attached to the wall. “I mean, there’s no way she could push that bookcase back in its place once she was through. Do you think she’s actually down here?”

“No,” Joe says, waving the flashlight around. “But from what Nancy was saying earlier, I think this might be some unused passageway to the sanatorium. Didn’t she say it was around here somewhere? On the mountain?”

“I think so,” Bess says, her arm brushing up against his side. “But still, I don’t think Deirdre is down here.”

“Maybe she was taken.”

“Don’t fucking say that.”

“I’m just _saying_ Bess, we have to consider the possibility that something else is at play here,” Joe says, running a hand through his unmanageable hair. “She has no motivation to just disappear like this. Something might have happened.”

“You sound like Frank when you say stuff like that.”

His eyes wander down to where she walks next to him. “Is that… bad?”

“No,” she says. She pushes forward to take the lead, then she spins around, nearly smacking into his chest. “It’s not a bad thing in itself, but I like—I mean, I enjoy spending time with you because you’re not always—I mean, you know, Frank can be so uptight about that stuff, and I don’t think you’re like, uptight, or anything, but I think that—”

Joe pushes a loose strand of hair from her face, the same one she had been playing with earlier by the fire, and she falls quiet. Her eyes follow his hand as he pushes it back into his pocket.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out suddenly, feeling heat rush to his cheeks. His voice begins to echo against the cold walls around them. “For earlier, I mean. I don’t know why I was being such a prick. This is just the last thing I wanted to do on this vacation and I took out my frustrations out on you. That wasn’t right.”

“It’s okay,” she says with a sigh. “I mean, it’s _not_ okay, but I forgive you.”

“I just—I just haven’t seen you in ages, and I—” He glances down at his feet. Having this conversation, right now, standing in a weird passageway underneath some weird lodge, is not the best move on his part. But he can’t help the way that she’s staring at him. That’s the thing about Bess Marvin he loves and hates the most: he can drive miles away from her but she’s still the closest fragment of a reminder that there’s something _more_ outside Bayport. The girls there were pretty but they weren’t _Bess_ , the girl he’d kissed underneath the bleachers in the sixth grade, the girl who met his mother—the _only_ girl who’s met his mother, the girl who fucking drove him up the wall but made him want to stay there despite everything else. He’s talking faster now. “I was really looking to spending time with you and now we’re here and we’re not really _doing_ anything and everyone is all focused on finding Deirdre and I’m just mad about it.”

It feels like they’ve been standing there forever, her not talking, him not moving, but then she reaches down and grabs his hand. “I mean, we’re hanging out right now,” she says. “It just might not be as fun as… other activities.” Her eyes spark at the word _activities_ , and his heart leaps into his throat.

“Creepy passageway isn’t sexy enough for you, Marvin?” he chides, pulling her into a hug. She wraps her tiny arms around his torso and he pushes his nose into the top of her hair until he can smell her shampoo. “I promise I’m a lot more chivalrous than this.”

She pulls away, pushing him in front of her once more with a little laugh. “I don’t know… there’s something about almost dying that gets me hot.”

“You don’t say,” he grins, shooting her a glance over his shoulder. She’s smiling too, in that lovely way he likes where her nose crinkles in the center.

* * *

 

By the time they reach the end of the passage without dying, Joe’s stomach begins to rumble. It occurs to him that he hasn’t eaten since they first got to the lodge, and all this searching has begun to make him hungry. But he should see this thing through until the end to be sure, so he presses on until the hallway expands slowly into a tiny room that’s just as empty as the hallway, save for some cracks in the foundation and questionable holes in the floors.

Something dark and black rushes across the floor and Bess screams, slamming her hand against one of the pipes. The rat, unaware of the company, scampers off into one of the floor-holes and disappears from sight.

“Jesus Christ,” Bess pants behind him, one hand pressed against her chest.

“All good, just a little critter,” Joe says with a laugh.

The pipe near Bess is still ringing from impact, vibrating next to her body. His eyes travel its length until it splits into two, one section going through the wall and the other pointing upward toward the ceiling. There’s a round hole that looks like it might go right through the floor of the lodge, except they’re a good hundred feet from it, so it has to go elsewhere.

The sanatorium.

The pipe expands a little when it reaches the ceiling, fitting into the hole that is carved in a perfect cylinder to allow for its entrance, but there’s also a squarish hatch nearby, close to the piping, that looks big enough for someone to squeeze through—if you can get up there, that is. It’s about fifteen feet off the ground and without a ladder, the idea almost dies before Joe can say anything.

Bess stomps her foot, and he looks back down at her. “Sorry,” he says. “I was just—do you think it’s possible for someone to get up there?”

She walks closer to him, peering up at the spot where he’s shining his flashlight. “I dunno,” she says. “Maybe, if there were stairs or something. But I don’t see any of that around here.”

“I think the sanatorium is above us,” Joe reasons aloud, sidestepping some of the holes in the floor and running a hand over the grimy wall. There’s some tiny nails still stuck into the concrete in a weird, sporadic pattern, as if something used to be hanging there.

It’s possible stairs used to connect to the hatch in the ceiling but were removed later. Maybe the owner found out about the sanatorium’s creepy past—because all sanatoriums are fucking creepy—and decided he’d rather not have literal connections to the place. Or maybe they fell down, years ago, due to a lack of maintenance. Who knows.

If Frank were here, he’d already be figuring out a way to get through—but this is Joe, and he’s not sure he even wants to go any farther. He told Nancy and the others that he and Bess would stay put and wait for Deirdre, and yet they’d already ruined that by going exploring in the basement. Deirdre could be back upstairs for all he knew, sitting by the fire and watching her master prank unfold before everyone. Or she was—

“Well?” Bess says. “Can we go back now?”

Joe sets his jaw. “I think we should go up there.”

“Uh, what?”

“I think we should go up there.”

“I heard you the first time,” Bess says, crossing her arms over her chest. “But the exclamation still stands. What? Why?”

“I just feel like there’s more to this thing than we know about,” he says, and she rolls her eyes. “Okay, my turn. What? What was that for?”

“You sound like Nancy when you say that,” she pouts. “I’m supposed to be in a hot tub or sitting next to a fire while people make dinner for me. I’m _not_ supposed to be rummaging around an old sanatorium.”

“Listen,” he says, sliding his hands down the small of her back. “I’d rather be in a hot tub with you too, princess, but we have to—I don’t know, we have to help out anyway we can, and I know Frank would go up there, so I think we should too.”

“This sucks.”

Joe laughs a little, gripping onto the plumping running up the side of the wall. It’s sturdy enough to support his weight so he begins to climb. “What’s the matter? You have no love for mystery running through your veins?”

“No,” she says, watching him wiggle down the pipes to the base of the thickest one that leads up past the hatch. “I don’t care for them. I’ll hire someone to solve my mysteries for me.”

“Okay, I’m dropping the flashlight down to you. Shine it up here so I can see what the hell I’m doing.”

“Yes sir.”

“Don’t get me started.”

She giggles. “Sorry.”

 Joe cranes his neck up, still trying to see through the darkness to whatever might be up there, but his eyes won’t adjust. Still steadying himself on one of the longer pipes, he shimmies down to where the opening is wider and climbs up to the last remaining pipe to place both hands flat against the ceiling. It’s a little damp from the moisture, but otherwise seems stable.

Below him, Bess is talking to herself. “Oh my god, you’re _actually_ going up there. Like, you’re actually doing it. I thought you were kidding. I can’t believe that you’d—”

Joe tries to tune her out in the most respectful way possible and turns his attention to the gap again, his mind racing with different ways to get himself up and through. His long legs will easily provide him with the force, but pulling up another human seems almost impossible. He can’t leave her down here, though, and going in here alone sounds like something Frank would call “hideously stupid”. He reaches one hand into the hole, the other still gripping the metal behind me, and almost expects for something to happen. Instead, he feels a partial draft, but can’t tell which direction it’s coming from.

Joe moves slowly, rhythmically, in a kind of meticulous way that makes him think of his brother and he has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. They’re pretty alike, aside from all the cynicism, and sometimes it’s almost annoying.

“Anything?” Bess calls from below.

Joe starts to feel around, extending his arm out farther, and looks for any soft spots. Getting _up_ there is one thing, but having the floor collapse and falling down into drainage pipes would be the total opposite of rad. Then, suddenly, his hand hits something hard and sturdy. It feels like a table leg or the bottom half of a chair, and when Joe yanks on it, it barely budges. He continues to put more and more weight on it, testing out the waters, before stabling himself long enough to use both hands. He can hear an audible gasp below as he transfers his weight over, momentarily dangling in the air, praying _to god_ that this thing—whatever the hell it is—doesn’t knock itself over before he manages to make his next move. But his training at The Network proves him well. He hoists himself up and through the hole, smacking his head on the curved ceiling in the room above. Through the single beam of the flashlight, he can’t see much of anything besides clouds of dust and some old furniture.

“Okay, _really_ cute,” Bess is saying, and when he looks back down at her, she’s standing with her hand on her hip. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

“Climb up the same way I did,” he says, crouching down to point to the structure, “and I’ll pull you through.”

“ _Pull_ me through?” Bess says, though she shoves the flashlight in her back pocket and finds a safe spot to begin climbing.

“What, you don’t trust me?”

“Now is _not_ the time, Joseph.”

Joe grins, watching her make her way to the same spot he had been, where the hole widens and allows for entrance. She’s near the broken metal stairs—or what’s left of them, anyway—but she’s much shorter than Joe, so her head barely hits the top of the ceiling. As if to respond, his muscles contract.

Joe realigns himself with the opening, giving himself enough space to safely pull her through and not fall over at the same time. She has her back to the wall, chin up, and it occurs to him just a beat too late that Elizabeth Marvin is afraid of heights.

“Okay, you ready?”

“Am I _ready_?” She pants. “No, actually, it’s quite scenic up here. Thought I’d take a few pictures of the rats scrambling around below me. Maybe have some lunch or order out—”

“Okay, okay, give me your hand.”

She listens, gripping one of the rungs from the stairs with one hand and reaching out the other toward him. Joe wipes the sweat off the back of his jeans and links hands with her, making sure to grip the top part of her wrist to be safe. She winces, but he’s already pulling, and when her body is awkwardly positioned between the opening and the wall, she lets out a yelp.

“Bess, let _go_ ,” Joe says, drawing the other arm up to wrap around her forearm. “I got you, I swear.”

She releases her grip and screams, dangling for half a second before Joe start to back up. She barely reaches the threshold to be considered heavy, but there’s barely any room to move around and he can’t see where he’s going. When she’s just about through, he trips on some old carpeting and fall backwards, taking her with him. She falls to the side, hair awry and covered in dust. The light of the flashlight blinds him for a second, and when his vision adjusts, she’s scowling.

“What?” He says. Wrong answer.

“I could’ve died.”

“But you didn’t,” He grins. “All thanks to me.”

“Oh, shut up,” she says, standing up fully again. Her height gives her an advantage in this tiny room. The ceiling is about two feet lower than the average room and there’s furniture crammed in every single visible spot, some covered with off-white sheets, some decayed with grime and mildew. The smell is unforgivable. “We got up here. Now where are we supposed to go?”

She has a point. With so much clutter, it’s hard to see any exit _or_ entrance. It’s almost like this was used as more of a barricade than a storage closet. But… for what? He doesn’t want to think about the answer.

Beside him, Bess reaches down and plucks a paper, half-soaked, off the ground. It’s barely legible, even with the light. Her mouth moves as she works through the salvageable part, blocks of text printed so small that an average person would need a microscope to read it. “Phenobarbital… chlordiazepoxide…” She crinkles her nose. “Aren’t those drugs?”

“Barbiturates,” he says, almost surprised at his own working knowledge. That was Frank’s knowledge of expertise, like most things, but he’d been able to pick up some things along the way. “This looks like some sort of toxicology report. But it’s really old.”

“There’s some notes in the margins,” Bess squints, moving the flashlight closer. “But the ink bled and I can’t read them.”

“Nancy mentioned something about a scientist,” he says, taking the paper from her and folding it. “Maybe these were some of his notes.”

“I can’t imagine what for,” Bess says with a shiver.

“Me either,” Joe says, scanning the room. There is a spot along the back wall with some old filing cabinets, but he can see the outline of the door behind them. He moves carefully, avoiding the parts of the ground with visible puddles of stale water, and Bess follows, clipped at his side. Once out into the expanding room, the hallway splits in two directions: left or right.

“Right,” Bess says. “Let’s hope it’s the right way.”

Any other day, Joe would’ve laughed at Bess’ panicked pun, but there’s something about this place that makes him nervous. It’s hard for him to admit that he’d feel better if Frank were here, but he’d feel a hell of a lot better if Frank were here. His brother was broad-shouldered and intimidating in places where Joe was not, and Frank had a sense of duty and dedication that kept his mind at peace during times like this. And now Joe was expected to be that person for Bess, the girl next to him with wide eyes. He stiffens immediately and her hands find the bottom half of his bicep.

They begin to walk down the chamber, and for the most part, it’s unoccupied and uneventful. It dead ends into another chamber, this one wider and more impressive, and leads them down a series of short steps before opening even wider to a room with a door. He yanks the door open and it nearly crumbles at the force, one half falling off the hinges. Once through, he can see rows of square cells, almost identical to the one seen at a modern-day prison. Most of the bars are rusted and some are even broken completely. Regardless, the thick scent of blood is unmistakable to him, but he keeps his face neutral.

“What in the _fuck_ is all of this?” Bess whines, her face morphing into disgust. “God, no. I want to leave. Let’s go the other way. I can’t—”

“During the fifties, sanatoriums were used to confine those who were mentally ill and labeled dangerous to themselves or others,” Joe says, even though he’s not sure it’s helping. Whenever he got freaked out, before his nightmares started, Frank would often prattle on about the history of this thing and that thing. Joe isn’t really sure if it was just because Frank _liked_ history or if it was meant to distract. Whatever the intent, it worked. Bess tightens her grip onto him, staring forward. “Unfortunately, they were treated very poorly because physicians weren’t sure how to treat them and new illnesses would arise every year. Sanatoriums were overpopulated and patients were constantly used in experiments. It was all super unethical. That’s why they were shut down.”

As if for emphasis, they pass by a cell with thick, jagged claw marks along the adjacent wall, close to some engravings where patients most likely documented their stay. He turns away. If these people were considered crazy when they came in, what were they when they came out?

He swallows hard. They didn’t.

Their footsteps echo along the brick path and the farther they walk the narrower the walls seem. Or it could be that Bess is moving closer to Joe with every step until she’s got her face fully pressed into the lining of his jacket, relying on his long strides to keep her from running into something.

“It’s okay, we’re almost to the door,” Joe says, eyes fixed on the silhouette.

After what feels like forever, they reach the connecting door and his hands can’t work fast enough on all the rusted locks. Bess fidgets nervously at his side, taking a quick glance to the last cell on her left, before he can feel her tug down hard on his jacket.

“Joe, look at this,” she says softly, and when he turns, he’s not sure what to expect. A body, maybe, or a skeleton. But instead it’s just a fairly empty cell, despite the crumbling back wall. There’s a glint of metal on the ground. One of these things is not like the other.

“What… is that?” He says, stepping forward. It looks like some sort of old-fashioned muzzle, but there are arm restraints too; almost like someone had tried to combine them together. But that’s not the most disturbing part. While the rest of this place is covered in rot and left to rust in the filth, this contraption is still gleaming steel, untouched by the elements, as if someone had just dropped it here recently. Looking up, he notices this is also the only cell with prominent blood stains, but he hopes Bess hasn’t seen them yet.

“Joe?” Bess says after a moment, and Joe backs up to begin working at the door again. It’s a long while before he speaks again, and Bess stirs in her spot. “What do you think happened here?”

Joe shouldn’t tell her. He shouldn’t tell her about his racing thoughts, the evil that took place here, the ache of those forgotten, or the way the walls ooze sadness that he’ll never be able to explain. Frank is so good at this stuff, so good at hiding his emotions, making things seem normal, fine, expected—but Joe’s the worst. He can’t hide his emotions, not when things start falling into place. Not when the ugly comes to the surface, not when things go bad. It’s why Frank has always been a better agent. He calls it compartmentalization, or something, but Joe can’t separate himself from the things he sees. It’s like trying to pull blue out of green. Without the blue, what you’re seeing isn’t green. Taking the horror out of this would be like separating the blue from the yellow and still calling it green. It’s not green. It’s something else. And this is definitely green.

“That’s not from the sanatorium,” Joe says slowly, pushing the door open, finally. It wheezes with discontent and he scuffs the bottom of his boots against the line of grime on the ground where the door had been stuck. “It’s from the scientist.”

“So? Nancy said he was just restoring the place.”

He doesn’t need to look at her face to know that she’s scared.

He thinks back to them giggling in the maintenance shed when he could feel her sticky breath on his skin, when nothing else mattered but the number of buttons on her shirt, when he could taste her chapstick, when all was warm and it was just the two of them on vacation. When things were anything but green.

“No,” Joe says with a little sniff, unable to meet her inquisitive gaze. The maintenance shed is gone. “He’s been conducting his own experiments.”

**Author's Note:**

> heyyyyyy everyone it's me again writing another tragic fanfiction for my amazing fandom. i'm trying to improve my third person so this will be a much needed challenge and enjoyment for me! i hope you guys like it; criticism + comments are always welcome and very much appreciated.


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